Conflict, leadership, and the leadership talk

Conflict comes with leadership when the sparks fly upward. If you don’t want to deal with conflict, leadership is not your thing.

Being a leader is not about IF you address conflict, but HOW. In fact, no other skill (other than being able to get results) influences people’s careers as much as the ability to deal with conflict.

Conflict and leadership go hand in hand because leadership often involves challenging people to do what they don’t want to do. If people did what they wanted, leaders would not be needed. Great results don’t fall like manna from heaven. Reaching them means that people have to step out of their comfort zone, make problematic decisions and take new puzzling actions. Leadership helps guide and motivate people to do those things.

There are countless books, articles, etc. dedicated to conflict resolution. But let me give you a tool that I have been teaching leaders of all ranks and functions around the world for over 22 years. It’s the leadership talk.

Because the Leadership Talk is results-oriented and addresses fundamental human dynamics, it can be an unrivaled way to help you deal with the inevitable conflicts you will face.

(The many books and many other articles I have written on the Leadership Talk can be viewed on my website.)

Here are the three essential elements you need to meet when addressing conflict and how the Leadership Talk can help you manifest those essential elements.

1. Establish a deep, human and emotional connection with the people you are dealing with. When in conflict, keep in mind that the message is not just the message, the message is the messenger. HOW to deal with conflict and WHO you are in dealing with conflict is just as important, if not more, than WHAT is conflict. Abraham Lincoln explained the importance of HOW and WHO: “If you want to win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend … Assume that you say in his judgment, or command his action, or mark him. As someone that must be rejected and despised, and will withdraw within himself, will close all avenues to his head and his heart; and although your cause is the naked truth itself … you will not be able to reach it except to penetrate the hard shell of the turtle. with a rye straw. “

The leadership talk helps you deal with not only the WHAT of conflict, but also the HOW. It is a clear and practical way to win the hearts of the people with whom you are in conflict simply because its driving principle is Lincoln’s imperative to convince the other side of your goodwill and sincerity.

2. Be guided and empowered through the process. It is important to your career to have a simple and clear conflict resolution process to guide your thoughts, speech, and actions. It may not follow it exactly in all cases, but it can help you better deal with the myriad varieties of conflict that you will face.

The leadership talk is a powerful conflict resolution process because it involves the human aspects in a practical and structured way. For example, one of his processes called it the Three Trigger Motivation Process. When faced with a conflict, you should ask three questions. If you say “no” to your answer to any of those questions, you cannot give a leadership talk. The questions are: 1. Do you know what the audience needs? 2. Can you bring deep faith to what you are saying? 3. Can you get the audience to act?

3. Stay focused on results. Since leaders do nothing more important than getting results, the fruits of how we handle conflict must be evaluated based on whether we are obstructing or promoting results.

In leadership, it is not enough to resolve conflicts, we must also achieve increases in results in the process. Forget trying to achieve “win / win”. That can be a cute trap. In fact, in many cases, a win / win goal can hamper results by preventing people from moving to the next step, the result-generating step.

The leadership talk looks at the conflicts you are involved in, not only in terms of conflict resolution, but of generating results. Also, his focus is not just on ordinary results, but more results, faster results on a continuous basis.

Since conflict will always be with you as the leader, you should welcome it as an opportunity for increased results. When you use Leadership Talks, you’ll get those results consistently.

2006 © The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

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