As a mediator and conflict resolution specialist, I consider clients' emotional intelligence, listening intelligence, and conversational intelligence when I work with them. This article focuses on emotional intelligence related to conflict resolution. Reading this article motivated me to dig further and provide additional insights. Remember that everyone wants to be respected and listened to during conflict. With this in mind, let’s dig deeper.
Addressing self-control and emotional considerations
Emotional intelligence is defined in the workplace as the ability to recognize, understand, and manage one's own emotions as well as those of others. If you can lead with compassion by being calm, confident, and competent while others have trouble doing this, you will enhance your own self-esteem and gain additional respect from others. This will help you collaborate better with others and address conflict better.
As a leader, you need to be conscious of your emotions, know your triggers, realize when you are starting to become upset and control those negative emotions.
Take deep breaths. Step back mentally. Focus on the problem at hand and be gentle with the people. Your natural inclination may be to become angry and overreact. Your brain cannot distinguish between a real fear (being attacked by a lion) and someone throwing an insult at you that you take offense to. The latter is not life-threatening. By staying cool, calm, and focused in light of someone trying to upset you, you likely say and do things that are pertinent to the current situation. Otherwise, you may say and do something that you regret later.
A leader should approach the situation calmly and encourage open and honest dialogue to fully understand the problem.
Respect and Listening
What does respect mean? Every person desires to be treated with courtesy and consideration and to be valued by others. They want to feel that their opinions matter. They want to be appreciated and acknowledged. It is a basic human need to feel worth and dignity. It does not matter what their income, education, social status, or background. Everyone wants to be treated with respect.
Everyone wants to be listened to.
Listening is more than simply hearing the words. Listening actively means giving someone 100% attention. It means not interrupting. Listening actively means checking for understanding, paraphrasing, summarizing, asking open-ended questions, and empathizing with the other person. This is not a passive activity. It takes intention and an element of control to continually ask what else should I be asking? The natural inclination is to initiate dialogue, but if you genuinely listen to another person, you will learn more and understand where they are coming from and why.
Empathy
Being empathetic when you are in conflict with someone else can be challenging. But try. Pause with your perspective and instead try to put yourself in their shoes. Why do they feel the way they do? Explore how you think they feel. Be understanding. Try to validate how you think they are feeling. If you are correct, you are on the right path. If not, the other party will correct you. When they do, try to reflect to them what you believe you heard in your own words by paraphrasing and summarizing what you think you heard. Again, this may be iterative, but continuing to focus on the other party and where they are coming from enhances your understanding. The other party will realize that you genuinely are trying to be empathetic.
Ask more open-ended questions.
Try looking at their situation from a different lens. How might a neutral third party see their perspective as an example. Use small gestures like nodding and appreciating their perspective. Acknowledge their emotions. Why are you doing this? You are looking for common ground related to the conflict. Keep an open mind and ask questions not to intimidate but to enhance understanding.
Look for opportunities to collaborate.
Everyone wants to be respected and listened to. By being clear and calm and showing compassion you open the door to collaboration. Look for shared values and ground concerning the conflict. By remaining focused on the problem and being gentle with the people, it may be possible to begin to relate to one another.
This may lead to developing an authentic, caring, positive relationship with the other party. It may be possible for both parties to begin to listen to one another.
As you start to focus on the problem together, you may be able to say something like, “I understand the deadline for this project is very hard to compete with other priorities. Let’s look at what else you are working on and see what may be adjusted in quantity, quality, and potential reassignment or delegation.” This demonstrates that you have listened, understand their situation, and want to work with them to help address their concerns.
Provide feed-forward
Once you reach an agreement, provide feed-forward. Feedback explores what happened and why. This can feel intimidating and be perceived as unfavorable. By comparison,
feed-forward explores what was learned and what we can do together in the future.
This reinforces the significant lessons learned in a non-threatening way. For example, building on the earlier commentary, you may say something like this, “In the future, when you have competing priorities, and you cannot see a way to complete a given project in a timely quality manner, please evaluate your situation as best you can and if you want my assistance, come to me with what you see as possible solution or solutions and let’s talk about it. I don’t want you to feel stressed out. I want to help you manage your inventory effectively and work with you to create a workable solution.”
Conclusion
By remaining calm, competent, and confident, leading with compassion, listening actively, being empathetic, asking open-ended questions, and taking the time to understand the situation, it is possible to resolve conflict with others. Try the techniques presented here and expand your learning to enhance your skills in these areas. To help you with this, consider exploring these links.
Check these out if you want to learn more about my publications on collaboration, conflict resolution, or enhancing your servant manager skills.