You may be admired for your intelligence and/or charisma and style
but you’ll gain people’s respect
by what you stand for, won’t stand for and stand up to*

Trust in, confidence in and especially respect for leaders rises and falls directly in relation to how promptly and effectively they identify, confront and resolve conflicts.  Wouldn’t you agree?

When President Obama seemed to go silent during parts of the recent Debt Ceiling Debate and it appeared that he was avoiding dealing with Congress, we lost respect for him.  When John McCain and Hillary Clinton became hostile during conflicts during the last election we lost respect for them… and they may have lost the election because of that.  On the other hand, when President Reagan proclaimed: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” and when President Kennedy took responsibility for the failure of the Bay of Pigs, that only raised our trust and respect for them.

Here is the choice for many companies.  When you are in a conflict that you can no longer avoid and must deal with you can hire an outside specialist in conflict resolution (a.k.a. mediator or arbitrator), because you are so uncomfortable and unskilled at doing it yourself.  The cost of not dealing with conflict as a leader, the trust, confidence and respect from others and from yourself is greatly diminished.  And when trust, confidence and respect from others and yourself goes down, your ability to lead effectively is also greatly diminished.

Alternatively and especially if you are a leader, you can learn how to be more effective in identifying, confronting and completely resolving conflicts yourself.  When you do that, the trust, confidence and respect from others and yourself skyrockets and your ability to lead effectively skyrockets as well.

Doc and Dr. Mark have been hired by many companies to help their executives become more effective at conflict resolution.  What we’ve discovered is that it’s not so much that people lack the will to do it, they lack the way to do it,  When you give people the way to confront conflicts effectively especially where there is little chance of making a bad situation worse, they are eager to learn, because: a) there is such a back log of conflicts needing resolution; b) they can then comfortably walk into any situation without fear or anxiety because they know that if a conflict arises they can deal with it effectively.

Our one on one executive coaching and team trainings have much to teach those people interested in learning Conflict Mastery, so please contact us to find out more.

In the meantime and in the spirit wanting to help you now, we hope you will find the following article helpful in starting down the road of Conflict Mastery:

The above column is about confronting someone about doing something and then holding them accountable.  To receive its companion piece, “Dealing with Hotheads” which is about how to deal with someone who is being confrontational with you either in an aggressive, passive aggressive or whiny/complaining manner and to find out more about Conflict Effectiveness Training contact: aviva@xtraordinaryoutcomes.com.

* Learn more: Xtraordinary Leadership