When a Leader Should Intervene in Workplace Conflict - Part 1

Navigating conflict at work is more common than most of us realize. It takes up a great deal of time and energy that could be used in more productive ways. But how can you know – as a manger - when it’s appropriate to intervene or just let your team members work it out? This is exactly the question I received recently and wanted to share my answer with all of you.

Q: I have two team members who are not getting along right now. We addressed the situation with them and things went well for about a month and then another explosion happened after a miscommunication issue. How do you work as a team with two people who don't play nice with each other?

If you are wondering if you should intervene as a leader, the answer is usually yes. Not to micromanage, but to coach and call people to greatness. Every situation, especially workplace conflict, can be the perfect thing that needs to happen for people to grow and get skilled up for what's coming their way.

While you can succeed in spite of any circumstances for the long-term, playing well with a couple of team members who are not taking responsibility for getting along with one another and working together professionally does have its short-term challenges. If things get snarky, setting micro boundaries is important and you can express this by letting them know you're interested in moving through things professionally.

You can't control them, but you can control how you engage with them.

Ask them to let you know when they are prepared to revisit the topic, focusing on the professional side of things. You can't control them, but you can control how you engage with them. Ask directly for what you need and that you’re interested in being professional. This will keep you from inadvertently enabling or tolerating the behavior. What can you do in the moment if they get into a disagreement? Call a time out and say, “I'm going to give us a couple of minutes so that you can compose yourselves and then we’ll reconvene and move on the professional side of this.”

There’s a second part to this question. If you've addressed the issue with the two team members and they were able to work together for a few months, I have good news – this means they're capable of getting along. They're just choosing not to.

When I was first supervising nurses, I hung up a schedule and immediately someone came to me and said, “This won't work for me. I'm scheduled to work with a colleague and we can't work together.” She asked me if I would change the entire schedule around to make sure that they didn't work together. I took a different approach and said, “Why don't you and I talk because I'm concerned you don't yet have the skillset you need to be able to work with anyone on the team, so why don't we work on your development?”  

Coach the person in front of you

You can move forward with a similar approach to coach the person in front of you. Ask them to come back to you with a plan on how he or she can work with anybody and how you can trust that they’ll deliver amazing results. Our job as a leader is to help our teams grow so they can operate freely in the world.  Here’s a challenge for you. How can you coach your individual team members, congratulate them that this had been put in their lives for a reason, and ask them where they need to grow next to enhance their own skill sets to thrive with any team they join?

Join me next week for Part 2 of this discussion around team conflict, where I bring to you another situation between co-workers that you can navigate more effectively and without the drama!