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Leadership and Conflict: For Better or for Worse

There is no doubt that leaders of organizations have enormous influence on how often, how intense, and what impact conflict has on their business. Organizations can not avoid conflict: how it occurs is the question. There is constructive and destructive conflict that can occur. Constructive conflict allows the participants to disagree, perhaps argue, without losing sight of organizational goals. Destructive conflict occurs when the conflict is personal, thus causing individual goals to override those of the organization. Destructive conflict stops the open flow of communication, and ultimately affects the bottom line.

Leaders are human, so some leaders are comfortable with conflict, while others are not. Some leaders enjoy conflict, and actually set coworkers against each other to see who comes out on top. For those leaders that are not comfortable with conflict, their organizations usually have cultures that reflect their discomfort – difficult messages are not delivered, thus lowering the quality of communication and productivity. Disputants speak about their conflict with everyone else, but not the person they are in conflict with!

Managers that are comfortable with conflict usually allow it to occur and encourage creative problem-solving. They know that conflict will occur: they also know it needs to be resolved in order to have a healthy organization.

Think of your favorite retail establishment. Why do you like it? Are you treated well, is there a positive interaction with salespeople? That goes directly to the manager and how he/she treats conflict, among other things. Amiable, disciplined managers know how to have an emotionally intelligent team that is creative, collaborative, and communicative.

Leaders who lead through intimidation or autocratic rule usually have organizations that incorporate shouting matches, blaming, and responsibility avoidance. Internal competition becomes so intense that it hurts overall organization results. Very few leaders like to admit that is their style, but if your organization has these symptoms, you really need to take a look at how you are leading.

What can be done to ensure that the relationship between leadership and conflict results in more collaborative problem-solving? Here are a few suggestions:


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About the Author

Dr. Diane Katz has worked with organizations, professionals for over 40 years. With a Masters Degree in Organizational Psychology from Columbia University and a Ph.D. in Conflict Resolution from Union Institute, she has applied her education to organizations large and small.

Diane has spoken to groups across the United States in over 20 cities, reaching thousands of professionals. She has spoken about decision-making, conflict resolution, organization development, and professional development. She thoroughly engages her audiences with intelligence and wit.

Dr. Katz started her consulting company, The Working Circle, in 1995. The Working Circle provides organizational development, human resources, teambuilding, training and coaching to organizations of all sizes, having served over 150 organizations. Some of her company’s clients have included Pricewaterhouse Coopers, The University of Arizona, Raytheon Missile Systems, U.S. Border Patrol, Westin La Paloma Resort, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, DR Horton Homebuilders, YWCA of Southern Arizona, and the Pima County Attorney.

StrategyDriven Podcast Episode 31 – How to Better Engage Employees

StrategyDriven Podcasts focus on the tools and techniques executives and managers can use to improve their organization’s alignment and accountability to ultimately achieve superior results. These podcasts elaborate on the best practice and warning flag articles on the StrategyDriven website.

Episode 31 – How to Better Engage Employees explores the actions executives and managers can take to better engage their employees; revealing how to improve employee satisfaction, productivity, retention, and ultimately the bottom line. During our discussion, Michael Lee Stallard, author of Fired Up or Burned Out: How to Reignite Your Team’s Passion, Creativity, and Productivity and co-Founder and President of E Pluribus Partners, shares with us his insights and illustrative examples regarding:

  • the benefits leaders realize as a result of better engaging their employees
  • the most significant driver of employee engagement and why is this factor so important
  • actions executives, managers, and supervisors should take to foster an engaging workplace environment
  • what a Connection Culture is and why it is so powerful at engaging employees
  • how to create a Connection Culture
  • actions executives and managers should take when someone within their organization does not buy-in or embrace the organization’s Connection Culture
  • the impact of ‘hard’ factors, such as HR policies and benefits, on workforce engagement

Additional Information

In addition to the incredible insights Michael shares in Fired Up or Burned Out and this edition of the StrategyDriven Podcast are the resources accessible from his websites, www.FiredUpOrBurnedOut.com and www.EPluribusPartners.com. Michael’s Connection Culture Manifesto can be downloaded for free by clicking here. His book, Fired Up or Burned Out, can be purchased by clicking here.

A special gift for StrategyDriven readers…

We are pleased to announce that Michael has made the electronic version of his book, Fired Up or Burned Out: How to Reignite Your Team’s Passion, Creativity, and Productivity, available for download at no cost to our readers. Simply click on the link above to download your copy of this remarkable book on how to better engage employees; igniting their creativity, imagination, and spirits to the success of the organization.

Final Request…

The strength of our community grows with the additional insights brought by our expanding member base. Please consider rating us on iTunes by clicking here. Rating the StrategyDriven Podcast and providing your comments online improves our ranking and helps us attract new listeners which, in turn, helps us grow our community.

Thank you again for listening to the StrategyDriven Podcast!


About the Author

Michael Lee Stallard, author of Fired Up or Burned Out, is co-Founder and President of E Pluribus Partners, a consulting firm specializing in helping leaders create ‘Connection Cultures’ to form strong bonds among the management, employees, and customers of an organization. Michael’s work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Leader to Leader, Human Resource Executive, and Fox Business Now. He has spoken at conferences organized by The Conference Board, GE, Google, NASA, Johnson & Johnson and Yale-New Haven Hospital. To read Michael’s full biography, click here.

Standards and Expectations Warning Flag 1 – Standards Creep

StrategyDriven Standards and Expectations Warning Flag articleHave you ever been confronted by a customer’s challenge that your product or service quality just isn’t what it used to be? Or notice the number of quality defects in your products or services has somehow increased over the past months, quarters, or years? Or felt so much pressure to get something done that you deemed the quality to be ‘good enough for government work?’

All of these are signs of standards creep; not a beneficial raising of the bar but rather an allowance of ever worsening performance.


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Adjusting Your Character Settings: The Authenticity of Leadership

If you are a member of Facebook, then you may be aware that the default privacy settings are being changed. I don’t lay awake at night worrying that someone is going to do something awful with the information that I post on Facebook, but I took the recommendation to adjust my settings so that only my “friends” can see my wall, photos and have access to any personal information on the site.

After I did this, I noticed that a friend had posted a link to directions for changing the settings. I was thankful to get the extra help because there was one setting that I had forgotten. But as I read down through the very long document, I was dismayed at the length some people will go to customize their privacy settings. I understand the need to protect your identity and all of that. But so much of this document alluded to adjusting settings to protect your image with certain people.


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About the Author

Shelli Stinson is the VP of Business Development at WealthBridge Connect. She brings experience from education, sales and marketing as well as project management. Most recently, Shelli was the employee wellness manager at Northern Kentucky University. In this position, she learned how much influence that leadership has on the physical, emotional and mental wellness of employees in the workplace. After graduating from NKU with a Masters degree in Executive Leadership and Organizational Change, she joined WealthBridge Connect. In this new role, she hopes to influence businesses to invest in their employees through comprehensive leadership development initiatives, promoting healthier and more productive workplaces- from the top down and the inside out.

Five Easy Principles?

It’s not enough to know what to do. Understanding why is important, too, so the Ethics Guy explores the deceptively simple guidelines that govern behavior

Over the past four weeks, this column has looked at some ethical questions that arise in professional and personal life, such as the ethics of New Year’s resolutions, whether it’s O.K. to lie to help the company, and collecting for kids at the office. By now, you might be wondering, “On what are you basing your analyses, Ethics Guy?” After all, it would be easy for anyone to shoot from the hip and say what he or she feels is the right thing to do when presented with an ethical dilemma.

As a professional ethicist, however, my responsibility is not merely to explain what we ought to do, but, perhaps more importantly, to say why we ought to do it. My ethical obligation to you is to provide good reasons for how we ought and ought not to act.

For the next several columns, I will present an account of the five fundamental ethical principles that are the foundation of right conduct in any arena of your life. They are:


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About the Author

Dr. Bruce Weinstein is the public speaker and corporate consultant known as The Ethics Guy. His new book, Is It Still Cheating If I Don’t Get Caught?, (Macmillan/Roaring Brook Press) shows teens how to solve the ethical dilemmas they face. For more information, visit TheEthicsGuy.com. To read Bruce’s complete biography, click here.