A New authentic leadership Blueprint for Disentangling co-worker Conflicts

Do you have a colleague who rubs you the wrong way ––– who gets in the way of your effective performance? Are you that colleague? Are you a manager experiencing frustration with coworkers who don't get along?

Successful organizational leaders build teams that their peers envy by honoring the power of the pair.

Imagine the scenario between Doris and Fred, both members of the same executive team. Their boss, a Senior Vice President, reports directly to the Chief Executive Officer. An early hire in a now big corporation, the SVP is approaching retirement. Among his successors are Fred and Doris, both incredibly talented, except in their ability to collaborate. The SVP worried about the conflict, aware that it was contributing to decreasing morale in his team.

The Senior Vice President tried several approaches to improve Fred and Doris's relationship. Fred and Doris's open battle, particularly acute in their nonverbal interactions, poisoned the SVP's leadership team. And, neither Fred nor Doris felt good about the current state of affairs. Competitive by inclination, Fred and Doris both knew the benefits of teamwork.

Effective two-person relationships on executive teams are at a minimum functioning and high-performing at desirable levels. Many managers are not equipped to navigate oxygen-deprived two-party relationships and often ignore conflicts. They prefer to reap top performers' results at the expense of increased authentic leadership, thus undermining the possibilities inherent in meaningful two-person relationships.

This first part of this article provides a step-by-step approach to resolving peer conflicts. Consultants, Human Resources leaders, and managers alike can use this step-by-step approach. The second part of the article describes the essential skills of leadership coaches who assist leaders in growing effective two-person relationships. Both lists arise from my experiences in mediating colleague and neighborhood disputes.

How to Improve Team Performance by Helping Feuding Colleagues

1.    Appreciate the context. Power, authority, ego strength challenges, career development aspirations, and competitive orientation are among the contextual factors affecting coworker relationships. Success hinges on effective environmental scanning.

2.    Make contact and contracts with multiple stakeholders. Performance happens in the context of political and other ambitions. There are mad, sad, and glad people in your organization. Perspective assists in scoping the challenging two-person issue. Work on clarifying agreements and outcomes for achievement.

3.    Consider those from whom you gather information about the situation. Will you use online surveys? Will you interview peers? What framework will you use? Will you try and fit data to a practical model or see what emerges from your discussion? Some blend of both? How will you ensure confidentiality?

4.    Do your homework with people. Everyone in this dispute matters, particularly your two direct reports. Likely, the feuding coworkers feel obligated to participate. The boss's request may be heard more as a demand, and an unwillingness to participate might signal deeper collaboration, teamwork, and trust issues.

5.    After assessing the environment and interviewing the boss and the affected colleagues at a minimum, schedule a meeting with the disputing colleagues. Get ready to begin sharing biases and observations.

6.    If you're working with an established framework at this meeting, make it explicit. A plan is essential. Perhaps you're providing feedback for discussion and review. You could engage the pair by asking each to describe the other and build a model both participants own. Ownership will assist the couple in addressing both task and relationship issues.

7.    Gain outcome clarity with the pair and seek agreement on methods. For example, an assignment may encourage the pair to substitute one behavior with another, promoting insight that shifts the experience from conflict to collaboration. Help everyone to have clear expectations.

8.    One framework that always assists is to clarify the nature of the disputes, often hidden from the pair. Do they disagree over the facts of the situation (reminiscent of fake news claims), or is the disagreement more fundamental, perhaps over personal values? Sometimes pairs disagree over methods or goals. Alignment and process flow techniques greatly assist if debates are over methods or goals. These processes also integrate "what" work with "how" work, a condition to improving interpersonal disputes.

9. Following up with stakeholders is essential to sustain momentum. Interview the colleagues separately, as well as others, for some mid-point status check on the process. Better yet, have the coworkers interview others to gain feedback and report the results back in a further meeting.

10. Know when to evaluate and when to end. If the dispute is beyond the scope of your abilities or capabilities, finish the assignment gracefully, and connect the people involved to those who are more skilled. If you have agreed-upon goals, achievement and critical review should enable decision-making on ending the business improvement project of having two colleagues improve the effectiveness of their interactions.

As you work or observe others in this area, pay attention. It's unlikely that you will replicate a process in this regard. Still, you will become better at developing your skills and abilities in helping others to improve team and organizational performance.

7 skills top coaches use in changing co-worker fueds

These seven skill areas provide insight into what makes coaches and consultants effective in these situations. While the list could be much longer and highlight other factors, these skills seem essential to creating new possibilities and orders in interpersonal disputes.

1.    Interviewing skills. Coaches and consultants working in this area need to be skilled interviewers. Effective coaches maintain eye contact and take notes.

2.    Preparation skills. While your credibility or experience might enable you to wing it in some circumstances, this is not one of those situations. Many planning tasks are made challenging by the number and variety of stakeholders.

3.    Leadership at the helm. In the consultation, leadership skills are necessary to move from the current to the desired future state. Navigating disputes between coworkers who need to collaborate requires skills that a boss or other manager hasn't been able to bring to the situation.

4.    Reflection. All conflict situations benefit from critical examination when urgent, immediate, and dramatic action is not required. A review can take many forms and happen in conversation with a trusted colleague, while gardening, or through active meditation. Much of this work will require that you make the conflicted coworkers' disputes visible, and your understanding contributes to the depth and effectiveness of this work.

5.    Focusing skills. It's not a secret that we all enjoy working with talented people, regardless of profession, industry, or position. In these and other consulting situations, the best consultants are experts at zooming in and out of focus. They see both the forest and the trees. Assuming that both coworkers are committed to improvement, they see value in continuing their work with the current employer. The coach plays a critical and vital role in sustaining engagement.

6.    Perspicaciousness. A perspicacious coach or consultant readily digs into situations, displaying care and kindness. They know when to shift, when to move, and when to ask questions that create change. With skill, consultants help coworkers focus on prominent issues here and now, and shape a view towards a different future.

7.    Contracting skills. One great gift that top consultants bring is helping clients figure out what they want and need. In two-person conflicts at work, gaining clarity on the differences between needs and wants presents a fluid pathway to the possibilities inherent in change. Contracting began long before the engagement, so it's an important reminder that reputations precede us and develop over time.

These skills, not presented in order of importance, arise from a commitment and understanding of and to the processes of helping others. Assisting colleagues to better performance generates psychic dividends, fueling accomplishments that drive self-esteem. Coaches and consultants are effective to the extent of their keen and developing insights into their agency for change and transformation processes.

moving to next steps

Improving coworker relationships is a challenging yet rewarding task. Any progress at fundamentally changing and improving coworker disputes requires a belief that change and growth are possible. Too many will write-off disputes of this nature, describing the feuding parties much as they would the natural separation between oil and water.

Calls to this work depend on credibility, honesty, and trust. In most people, these are not age-dependent variables. Wisdom comes at any age. Coaches and consultants at any career stage can bring these qualities to work. The best coaches and consultants don't find a substitute for any of these qualities.

Transparency is fundamental to this work across different social systems. Individuals, pairs, trios, and groups of all sizes are likely affected by unresolved executive conflict. The magic of this work is revealed through demonstrated care, commitment, and preparation.

Getting pairs unstuck and ending current dissatisfaction is accomplished by consultants and coaches who help the pair describe the benefits of improved work and charting a course for new possibilities, increased engagement, and enhanced goal attainment. Reconstruction, reimagination, or rebirthing are outcomes of work in this area. A belief in humanistic values and the power of potential underscores all meaningful change.

Are you creating change in situations similar to these? What advice or recommendations do you have for others? Your energy and positivity contribute to creating organizations where people do their best work.