Conflict management has failed. It was always destined to do so, because conflict resolution demands leadership, not management. Management provides compromises on issues under debate, but does not deal with the root causes of the conflicts. Leadership deals with the fundamental roots of conflict, not just the topic on the table.

 

So what should leaders do when faced with conflict?

 

For a start, they need to recognise that few conflicts are really about the issues people are disputing. They are about the ways in which different people see those issues.

 

 

When people see things differently, there will be conflict. But not all conflict is necessarily bad. Without some kind of conflict (the grit in the oyster) organisations can stagnate and die.

 

We all know that a major source of conflict is diversity – the differences between people. So we encourage our leaders to celebrate diversity as a source of constant renewal and energy. We look to our leaders not to get rid of conflict once and for all, but to channel the energies created by conflict into something constructive and creative.

 

Even though we recognise that people who are different from ourselves can be hard to understand or value, we have made great strides in learning tolerance and understanding. Attitudes to ethnicity, religion, gender, age and sexual orientation have changed, supported by legislation that makes it illegal to discriminate against people on these grounds.

 

Many enlightened organisations devote a significant amount of attention to inclusion – the means of ensuring that each individual can feel and be included irrespective of whether he or she is a member of any kind of minority.

 

There is always more that can be done to deal with conflicts that emerge through diversity, but progress is being made. However, one area that has received very little attention has been character, and the values that go with it.

 

Throughout the eighties and nineties literature on organisations promoted the notion of ‘shared values’ as a source of strength. It was rarely questioned whether the promotion of shared values may be in any way discriminatory.

 

While other sources of potential conflict are being addressed, dealing with conflicts that emerge from differences in character can be much more subtle and difficult. This is difficult because, firstly, unlike other areas of diversity, the diversity of character and values is less clearly understood. Secondly, people find it harder to be tolerant to people with different values from their own than they do with people who are from different cultures, religions or gender.

 

 

Intuitively we see differences in character, and we talk about them. During the past fifty years or so, recognition and talk about personality has been made more constructive and thoughtful by increasing familiarity with and effective use of the wide range of psychometric tools that provide perspective and precision to our innate insights into the differences between people.

 

People now talk openly and constructively about extraverts and introverts, and how they can get along. They recognise how a blend of ‘top down’ and ‘bottom up’ thinking can provide substance to strategic planning. Personality and its impact on organisational strength is a given.

 

But we have not yet made the same progress with character. In most organisations, the language of character is like the language of personality fifty years ago – crude, imprecise, and potentially divisive. In many cases, people’s language about character is no more subtle than a classification into those with ‘strong’ characters and those whose characters are ‘weak’.

 

It is time to apply the same kind of precision and sensitivity to character as we have learnt to do with personality. One of the ways of doing this is through the use of theLeadership, Character and Strategy (LCS) framework. Built over the past 15 years from close observation of the differences between effective leaders in action, LCS provides ways of exploring the diversity of character and how understanding these differences can get to the heart of many conflicts that, otherwise, are irresolvable.

 

The benefits can be significant. But there are serious barriers to break down first.

 

 

People are learning the benefits of diversity within teams based on personalities. Visionaries and detail-people learn how to get the most out of each other to form strong partnerships, while rationalists partner to mutual benefit with those with well-developed people skills.

 

But, unlike personality, character has not been afforded the same kind of attention. And this is partly due to the assumed sanctity of our personal values – the things we believe in deeply, and which inform our unique characters.

 

Getting on with people whose values are diametrically opposed to ones own can seem threatening. It can appear to be condoning what, to one’s own way of being, is simply bad behaviour. It can feel like a betrayal of one’s deeply held beliefs. Having to accept what may look like laziness, aggression, cowardliness, or dictatorial behaviour in others is, for many people, a step too far.

 

If I believe people should be responsible and mature, it feels like a betrayal of myself and my beliefs if I sit by and let those who flout the rules get away with it. But if I believe in the freedom of the individual above all else, it would seem to be a betrayal of that belief and of myself if I did not challenge any convention I came across that I felt limited that freedom.

 

This is because the values we hold are, for us, the right values. And they are right not because we can prove them to be so by any scientific method, but because they are morally right. What you believe is right is so not because of any other factor than that you believe it to be so. And you believe it because that’s the kind of person you are.

 

The challenge is to try to get on with people who are not like you, and who, as a consequence do not believe in the same things as you do.

 

The LCS approach to conflict resolution confronts this challenge head on.

 

 

In practice, these hidden character differences are played out in often fruitless and frustrating debates about issues.

 

One organisation is planning to introduce a new role of Account Manager to grasp the opportunities of an expanding market. But the plan is delayed and delayed as key members of the leadership team argue about the nature of that role: how targets should be set, how Account Managers should be incentivised, what checks and balances should be put in place to control Account Managers’ enthusiasm.

 

Another organisation is facing up to issues raised over the ‘work-life balance’. But the top team cannot agree on how to respond to the mixed messages coming from their employee survey. Some are adamant that no action should be taken that would weaken their competitive position in a tight market, while others argue for the principle that ‘our people are our greatest resource’ and should be given more say in how their terms and conditions impact their lives outside of the workplace.

 

These and thousands of others are the kinds of issues that are being hotly debated in boardrooms across the globe. Resolving these conflicts takes time and energy. Often decisions taken are too little, too late.

 

What LCS enables leaders to do is to dig beneath the surface of these issues and recognise the influence of individual leaders’ characters on their often-predictable take on each and every such issue. Instead of having fruitless debates on issue after issue, people who have embraced LCS are able to look beneath the surface and seek ways of resolving the ensuing conflicts in ways that balance potentially conflicting needs and values.

 

 

Resolving conflict is not about righting wrongs, be they of fact or even of opinion. It is about having the imagination to see things from another’s point of view, and having the courage to work together with people who are different from you on the challenging but achievable task of constructing ways forward that all parties can live with and make work.

 

Without a tool like LCS, this kind of deep exploration of the roots and causes of many conflicts within organisations can be hard or even impossible. It is the kind of tool that cracks open the true differences between characters.

 

Everyone, for example, knows that it is important to act with integrity, and most try to do so. But when one person’s integrity appears to another to be dishonesty and self-serving, conflict occurs. Everyone recognises and supports the idea that teams can achieve a great deal, and play his or her part in team endeavours. But when one person’s teamworking is interpreted by another as ‘group think’ and as the suppression of individuality and identity, conflict occurs.

 

Many of the so-called ‘shared values’ within conflicted organisations are shared words with very different meanings, and paper over the cracks of fundamental differences in character and values. The conflicts that result from these differences are the very ones that traditional conflict resolution methods fail to resolve.

 

They do so because they cannot and do not get to grips with character. LCS does so.

 

In today’s conflict-torn world people are coming to the realisation that clashes of values cannot be resolved effectively by the victory of one set over another. Today’s leaders need to be aware of, and capable of working with a wide range of different value-sets, and with the characters who live those values.
 

Leadership and Conflict is available as a complete, one day training programme for download on this site.