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A leader’s guide to effective conflict management

Harmony Internal - McKinsey

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ESSENTIALS FOR LEADERS AND THOSE THEY LEAD

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Global leaders, Industry & Capabilities Practices

Not all conflict is bad. Good conflict can lead to positive outcomes, often pushing us to be our best selves, to understand others better, and to find more innovative or creative solutions to problems. But while healthy conflict can cause useful friction and drive us toward improvement, negative conflict can quickly have the opposite effect: the fallout can include a toxic workplace culture, diminished engagement, and higher rates of burnout and attrition. This week, let’s explore ways to bolster your conflict management skills so that both you and your team can come out of tough situations unscathed.

AN IDEA

Nip toxic culture in the bud

According to recent McKinsey Health Institute research led by senior partner Martin Dewhurst and others, a quarter of survey respondents globally report experiencing toxic behavior at work—the biggest predictor of burnout and attrition. And Tessa West, author of Jerks at Work: Toxic Coworkers and What to Do about Them, has discovered firsthand that sometimes those who don’t feel they’re part of the problem also don’t offer to be part of the solution due to fear of retribution or not knowing how to navigate conversations about conflict productively. “We end up with this vicious cycle of toxic behaviors , engaged in by few but put up with by many,” she says in this interview with McKinsey’s Jacqueline Brassey . “And now we’re at the point where people are just tired of it.” But pushing the problem away only lets people grow more disengaged and resentful. Proactively having conversations and targeting specific behaviors improve your chances of successful conflict resolution. “Bosses tend to feel they have the resources to put out little fires but not big ones,” West says. “Have the conversations early and often; you’ll feel like you have much more agency, and your locus of control will go up.”

A BIG NUMBER

That’s the average number of hours per week that managers spend dealing with conflict, according to Conflict at work, a new research report by The Myers-Briggs Company. Diving deeper, the report shows that the number of people experiencing conflict often or all the time has increased by 7 percent since the same study was conducted in 2008. Yet, 25 percent of people believe that their managers don’t handle conflict well, allowing the friction felt in the workplace to snowball.

A QUOTE

“Most of the time, people trapped in conflict don’t know the understory. They get so focused on false flags like the Crock-Pot or the Legos that they get stuck. High conflict is like a trance in this way. It’s hard to look away.”

That’s journalist and author Amanda Ripley on navigating the root of a conflict versus what it appears to be about on the surface. In her book High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out, Ripley characterizes high conflict as self-perpetuating and all-consuming with an “us versus them” charge. She offers some tactical ways to climb your way out of conflict, starting with active listening. “Once we feel understood, we see options we couldn’t see before,” she says. “We feel some ownership over the search for solutions. Then, even if we don’t get our way, we are more accepting of the result because we helped build it.” (You can check out more of our reading recommendations here.)

A SPOTLIGHT INTERVIEW

Negative dynamics with colleagues can deplete your energy and induce stress. In this Author Talks interview with McKinsey, Harvard Business Review contributing editor Amy Gallo discusses how to get value out of difficult relationships at work, turning enemies into allies. She identifies eight common work enemy archetypes, ranging from pessimists to insecure bosses. The tactics to create more positive relationships with these coworkers remain largely the same, but Gallo says how or when you use them may change depending on the archetype. A lot of the tactics are “often about setting norms,” she says. “They’re often about nudging people in the right direction or modeling the behavior you want to see.” Gallo emphasizes that it’s all about incremental improvements: “Some of these experiments will fail miserably. But some of them will teach you valuable things about how to improve that relationship. You’re collecting lessons along the way.”

LOOK INWARD

Illustration of four hand mirrors being held up to a person, all with angry faces in their reflections

As people move up the ranks at work, they become more likely to focus on their own needs and goals, becoming less sensitive to problematic behaviors spreading throughout their teams. In this McKinsey Quarterly article, Stanford University professor Robert Sutton describes how leaders can fight workplace dysfunction by building an organization with “a culture of small decencies” where offenders don’t thrive. “For most of us, coming to grips with when we act like jerks, or encourage others to do so, requires overcoming some mighty potent predilections,” he says. Work to understand perceptions, beware of contagious behaviors, and consider how what you do today may affect how you feel about yourself tomorrow.

Lead confidently through conflict.

— Edited by Dana Sand, editor, Columbus

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by "McKinsey Leading Off" <publishing@email.mckinsey.com> - 02:53 - 5 Dec 2022

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Nip toxic culture in the bud

“Most of the time, people trapped in conflict don’t know the understory. They get so focused on false flags like the Crock-Pot or the Legos that they get stuck. High conflict is like a trance in this way. It’s hard to look away.”