Conflicts are inevitable, and they can be a good thing. The question is how a team resolves them. For that, it must first be decided how the team wants to resolve conflicts at all. This is where conflict management begins, long before the first dispute.
A constructive conflict culture exists when everyone knows: conflicts will come, and they are usually a sign of a structural problem. An escalation then makes a positive contribution. It makes visible what was only felt before.
The first step toward a constructive conflict culture is appreciating that contribution. The aim is neither to avoid upcoming conflicts nor to escalate them in a way that seriously damages one of the people involved. Ground rules make the work possible: who speaks when, what gets addressed, what stays out, who decides when no agreement is reached.
Teams without ground rules resolve conflicts through power or through silence. Both cost. Teams with ground rules resolve them through work. That is the whole difference, and it can be set in one meeting.
When we have dealt successfully with differing perspectives, goals, values and relationships, we have managed a conflict constructively. Then something new has been created together: a way of collaborating in which everyone keeps their individuality.
An example as an analogy: in families you can observe particularly well how constructive conflict resolution enriches life. Growth in living together comes through resolved conflicts, rarely without them.
In conflicts with people on the team who are less close to us, a leader pays attention to the power base and at the same time actively builds the relationship of trust. Transparency, attentiveness and exchange of experience play the decisive role. Experience shows: the quality of work and innovation grow in cultures where disputes are discussed more openly.
What gets “resolved” in the process should not necessarily be the conflict. The conflict is often the very thing that makes us different, and that may stay.
Those who trust a constructive conflict culture lose the tension and stress that come with fear and aggression in conflict. This more relaxed attitude carries well-being, joy in work and creativity in collaboration. Conflict management in this sense is less a technique than an attitude: Those who expect conflicts to come, and know the rules by which they will be worked through, stay capable of acting when it gets loud. That is what separates teams that survive conflicts from teams that grow through them. It also explains why conflict management in leadership teams is so often booked as a seminar and so rarely anchored as a set of rules.
In leadership teams, conflict management usually fails because of timing. The conflict is visible for weeks before anyone names it, and during that time it grows. The cheapest intervention is therefore the earliest: say what you see, in the room, without interpretation.
Three questions I use to bring leadership teams to their conflict culture: which conflict do we have right now that nobody voices? What happens if we keep not voicing it? And which ground rule are we missing so that next time someone speaks earlier? The answers usually come faster than expected. More on this in Leadership Coaching and Executive Coaching Zurich.
A culture in which everyone expects conflicts and reads them as a sign of a structural problem. An escalation then contributes something useful, because it makes visible what was only felt before. Conflicts get resolved through work, guided by agreed ground rules.
With ground rules, long before the first dispute. Teams without them settle conflicts through power or through silence, and both are costly. The rules can be agreed in a single meeting.
Mostly because of timing. A conflict is often visible for weeks before anyone names it, and it grows during that time. The cheapest intervention is therefore the earliest one.
Rarely in full. The conflict often marks exactly what makes the people involved different, and that may stay. What has to succeed is handling differing perspectives, goals and values so that everyone can collaborate and keep their individuality.
Further reading on hofmann.coach: How leaders resolve conflicts constructively · 10 conflict resolution tips for leaders · 16 leadership behaviors that set a bad example for the team · Solution-focused culture: How leaders move conflict forward
Cristian Hofmann is an executive coach in Zurich and Schaffhausen (MAS Coaching & Supervision BSO, Forbes contributor). Over more than 20 years he has coached more than 1,500 leaders: CEOs, executive boards and leadership teams in Switzerland, with measurably agreed goals and, on request, pay-for-results. More about Cristian Hofmann.
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