Manage Workplace Conflict To Improve Employee Morale
If I could change one thing about my leadership style early in my professional baseball management career it would have been the immediacy with which I addressed challenging personnel issues. Like many leaders, when it came time to address performance, behavior or attitude issues with employees I avoided them like the plague.
Mid-way through my leadership career I was given the opportunity to take over a growing operation, one that grew from a full-time staff of three to 15 within just three months. The situation caused tremendous growing pains and strained my limited leadership skills as I had to manage more varied personalities. My default approach would be to hope whatever the personality conflicts, behavior issues or employee performance matters, they would fix themselves. They didn’t. As you might imagine the issues got worse and employee morale plummeted, along with my respect as a leader.
I learned the hard way how not to manage workplace conflict and how not to improve employee morale.
The final five years of my leadership career I became much more proactive in addressing these type of issues, reducing my stress, reducing stress throughout our company culture and eventually improving employee morale. After leaving baseball and starting my business coaching and consulting firm I decided to make the issue of helping business leaders to promptly and effectively confront employee performance, behavior and attitude issues a primary focus
Confronting issues quickly, directly, and respecfully is a leadership skill that separates champion leaders from mediocre ones. One of the primary organizational issues leaders must address in this manner center around employee performance, behavior and attitude. Many times this requires a what could be considered a confrontational conversation with the offending employee(s). Usually, because the issue has not been dealt with promptly, the situation has festered and gotten worse, making the discussion even more challenging with the potential to cause workplace conflict.
The good news is that there is a way to manage potential workplace conflict. Which is simply, the earlier a leader confronts an issue the more likely what could be viewed as a confrontational conversation that could lead to conflict, can be avoided. Leaders who master the fundamentals of communicating to influence are more able to address issues at the beginning stages of a situation. As such, they are more respected, enjoy more effective teamwork, create a high-trust company culture and attain greater bottom line results.
On the flip side, leaders who fail to confront issues promptly can cause the deterioration of their company’s culture, create a low-trust work environment, suffer from low employee morale and face the potential of workplace conflict. Therefore, I strongly recommend company leaders make the issue of confronting issues promptly a key focus area in their professional development and in evaluating the performance of their middle managers and mid-level company leaders. Doing so is the primary strategy for managing workplace conflict.
We have found that when leaders focus on integrating four key fundamental communication and behavioral values into their organization’s culture, confrontational conversations (or what we prefer to call “conversations to positively influence”) are much easier to engage. These four “Core Dimensions” are Respect, Empathy, Specificity and Genuineness. These “Core Dimensions” are the foundation of a leadership communication training program called “Influencing Options” developed by Bob Weyant and recently furthered by Libby Wagner of Professinal Leadership Results, Inc. in Seattle, Washington.
Since working with my organizational development clients to help them create a Championship Culture, I’ve been amazed at the rapidity with which a culture can change its feel through the consistent application of something as simple as the Core Dimensions. There is research showing the power of transformation in individuals when they are communicated to with high levels of the Core Dimensions, but we don’t need quantifiable research to know the power of this philosophy.
Imagine someone you interact with on a regular basis that delivers high levels of the Core Dimensions of Respect, Empathy, Specificity and Genuineness. Notice, for a moment, how you feel when you are around that person? In the workshops I deliver with executive teams from all size organizations, I get comments such as “empowered,” “creative,” “energized,” “calm,” “comfortable,” “seeing possiblities,” “optimistic,” and much more. That’s an exciting culture to be around and it builds relationship with high trust.
On the other hand, imagine someone you interact with that consistently delivers low levels of the Core Dimensions. Notice, now, how you feel around that type of individual? Again, comments from workshop participants regularly report feelings such as, “stressed,” “angry,” “frustrated,” “uncomfortable,” “want to get out of there,” etc. Those type of relationships drag an organization’s culture down and create low trust work environment.
If you want to be a respected leader comitted to creating an environment with high employee morale, begin stepping up to consistently apply high levels of the four Core Dimensions. I guarantee you will soon notice how much more easy it will be to influence others around you.
To learn more you may want to study trainings in the field of Influencing Skills, Managing for High Performance & Retention and how to have Confrontational Conversations.
IMPORTANT NOTE:
Allowing issues that need to be confronted to fester and get worse is just one of five leadership communication mistakes that can destroy an organization’s culture and employee morale. In a recently released White Paper report I discuss this and the other six leadership communication mistakes and what do about them. You can click here to download this Free White Paper Report, “The 7 Deadly Sins of Organizational Leadership Communication.”
Skip Weisman works with organizational leaders to improve personnel, productivity and profits by helping them “Create a Champion Organization,” now you can get his latest white paper,the 34-page report on “The 7 Deadly Sins of Organizational Leadership Communication” at www.HowToImproveOrganizationalCommunication.com this will help your organization communicate effectively and take action with commitment towards a shared compelling vision.
