Day #11: Strategies for conflict resolution for a team leader
As a team leader, one of the main responsibilities is to ensure that your team has a healthy, collaborative, safe, and stable environment.
As I explained in other articles, my recent professional role was as an Engineering Manager, and now I decided to share some ideas/approaches for conflict resolution with those that are aiming to pursue a leadership role in their careers. This is one of the most complex situations that any leader can be faced, because a leader needs 100% the commitment of their team, the commitment as a team, as a group of people that wants to achieve a common goal.
Origin of conflicts
However, even if we as a leader always do our best to achieve that environment, that doesn’t depend only on us, but on the persons of our team. I highlighted “persons” by purpose because never forget that your team is composed of persons, human beings that have emotions, fears, ambitions, moods, personal life/problems, etc... Never forget this, because this will help you to understand what is happening when conflicts situations occur.
A conflict situation can occur for many reasons, for instance, someone regularly doesn’t agree with others' ideas, or doesn’t work together with the team, or always criticize others, or even with someone outside of the team that regularly puts pressure on the team (for instance, a product manager). The origin of a conflict can start in many ways, but usually, the origin of a conflict is from repeated behavior/actions of someone that is generating frustration to others or someone in particular.
Anticipate/prevent conflicts
So, one of the things you should do in your routine as a team leader is to pay attention to those signals, signals of bad behaviors, or the beginning of any kind of frustration/conflict. The best way to resolve any conflict is actually to take action before the conflict actually starts.
But to prevent those conflicts you need to make some regular actions/tasks. Here are some things that you can do to try to anticipate/prevent conflicts in your team:
Be present in your team routines
Be present in your team routines as much as possible. Not to supervise or micro-managing, but to identify any behavior changing or some behavior that you feel is not healthy for your team. Being present also improves your awareness about (individual or group) behavioral changes to help you to take any action in advance if needed.
Regular 1–1’s with your direct reports
Have regular 1–1’s with your direct reports, and besides the normal questions about their careers and progress, regularly ask about the team's health to your direct reports. Ask for particular situations to understand if those were something uncomfortable to him or to the team, and recommend to your DRs to have some 1–1s with other colleagues to ask and give open and regular feedback.
Assess the team's health
Assess the team health by asking them how they feel working in the team, ask for something that generated some conflict on a heavier discussion in the team, and ask openly if in some moment they felt uncomfortable with something in the team. Bring some examples about what you consider a bad behavior, because sometimes your Direct Reports can have something that was uncomfortable to them but they are afraid if they are being a bit too picky to share that situation. Ask for feedback, ask for suggestions to improve the team environment or ways of working.
Create a safe zone
But never judge the concerns of that person
Create a safe zone for them to share their opinion about your team's health. Never criticize them for their feeling uncomfortable with some situations even if you don’t share the same opinion. Instead, try to understand why they felt uncomfortable with that situation. Mostly in your 1–1s with your DRs, promote the spirit of that conversation they can share any concerns, any opinions about the company or someone, that will be a private conversation and will not be shared with anyone else in the team (unless he wants to share). That is a moment where your Direct Report should be transparent with you without feeling fear of sharing their concerns, then, is up to you to bring some different perspective to help that person to overpass that concern or situation. But never judge the concerns of that person, you are there not to say what is right or wrong, but to help that person on being better every day, on overpassing their obstacles, on facilitating the way of working of your DR, but you are not the person that has the right opinion. In fact, as I always say, I don’t care if I’m right or wrong, I just care about finding solutions for the problems, no matter where the solution came from.
Share positive feedback
Share positive feedback in your 1–1s but also, in the team meetings. This positive feedback can be about performance but also, behavior, regularly show to your team what is important to you, and good behavior it’s one of the key skills that someone should have to succeed in the team.
Also, promote an environment where is expected that we praise our peers, where support each other when others have failed, and bring a positive spirit to the team.
Individual negative feedback only on your 1–1s
Share individual negative feedback only on your 1–1s. Avoid sharing negative feedback about someone in a group, it will just create more frustration for the person that received that feedback, that person will not trust you anymore (actually, you will be an enemy for him), and you can also lose the trust of the rest of the team. What you care about is to help that individual in improving his behavior/performance on a daily basis, you are there to help him to succeed, so tell him with strong arguments why his behavior doesn’t help him and neither the team to succeed, and in your 1–1’s track the progress altogether;
The conflict is generated by someone outside of the team
As said, a conflict can also be generated by someone outside of the team, for instance, a Product Manager that is always pushing your team for deliveries or creating a toxic environment every time he talks directly with the team. What I usually do is schedule regular 1–1s with every direct stakeholder, for instance, every 3 weeks. The goal of that regular meeting is an opportunity to align expectations for both sides, align concerns, identify improvements, etc… Those can be related to product delivery, team health, or even some concerns in terms of team communication, to understand if that person is being comfortable to work with the team and share feedback from the team about that person behavior with the team.
For instance, I had in the past a situation where the Product Owner always had a communication that was regularly causing pressure on the team, most of the times was unnecessary communications, such as sharing with the team that the company direction can change drastically and everything we have planned can be changed soon. This was a clear unnecessary communication, because that was not yet confirmed and also, wasn’t true. These regular ways of communicating with the team were creating uncomfortable moments and I had to align with the Product Owner to improve the way of communicating, and most importantly, we have to be aligned in advance in what we want to communicate to the team.
That is why it’s important you have regular 1–1s with every direct stakeholder, to have a moment where is expected to align some things, even if those things are not critical (yet). Because, if you need to align with someone and you don’t have those 1–1s already schedule if you schedule a meeting specifically for that will only be in phases more critical and sometimes, already too late.
When a conflict just escalated
Even if we try to anticipate as much as possible that a conflict happens, sometimes is just inevitable, we are humans and we are unpredictable. When this situation happens, here is when the leader should intervene. As a leader, our role many times is being mainly an observer, mostly when things are going well, the leader can let the team run in “auto-pilot mode”, paying attention to some signals as explained above, but you have to trust your team, this also lets you help your team on unblocking them on external tasks (product delivery, stakeholders expectations, seeking for careers opportunities for your team, identify improvements, etc…).
But when a conflict starts, is time for you to work closely with your team. First thing, identify that a regular conflict is happening and is getting worse. In those situations, have a more specific conversation with the actors in the conflict zone, try to understand the origin of that conflict, and talk openly with them to clarify how that started and why escalated.
Here are some things that you should do as a leader in those situations:
Try to clarify as soon as possible with those persons what happened. If needed, schedule a conversation with those persons to understand if is a conflict that was just once or is something we have to take an action immediately;
Don’t take any side. Unless the conflict start for something really unprofessional by some side, usually the conflict escalated by wrong behaviors from both sides;
Talk openly with the persons. Try to understand what is happening;
If some of them are not your DR, ask for collaboration in that situation from the Line Manager of the other person;
Bring your perspective on what is expected from them in that conflict situation;
Define goals for that person to improve in the coming days, for instance, actions they have to behave differently to at least not impact others in the team;
Make sure that those people talk to each other as soon as possible, and never skip those conversations when a conflict starts, it will get worst next time (trust me);
Well, this is what I would like to share with you in case those situations happen. What do you think? Do you agree? Do you have a different approach? Let me know in the comments box. Next time, I will talk about decisions making, how a leader can help a team to move forward when they have to make the hard decision of taking a technical decision for their new project. That is also an important skill that a leader must have to help their team to move forward.
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