Now You Can Manage Conflict Between Employees Like a Boss

May 7

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In previous discussions, we’ve touched on the importance of conflict resolution in the workplace, including how to handle conflict with a direct report. What about managing conflict between employees? What role should you, the manager, play if an issue doesn’t directly involve you?

We’ll go over the following:

6 employee conflict resolution strategies
Steps towards conflict resolution in the workplace.
Tips to keep in mind while managing conflict between employees.

6 employee conflict resolution strategies

In the book “The Psychology of Conflict and Conflict Management in Organization”, the authors discuss the different levels of involvement managers can choose to exercise when managing conflict between employees. The level of involvement corresponds to the power to make decisions.

Advising or facilitation: The reports and manager share control over the discussion. The manager’s duty is to ensure an effective, positive discussion. The reports have full control in deciding how to proceed. This is the best case scenario.
Mediation: The manager has full control over the process, but the reports decide how to proceed. This method is ideal for opposing parties that can't communicate effectively without major guidance, but are willing to work together towards a solution.
Adversarial or arbitration: The reports control the discussion, but the manager makes the final decision. This method is ideal for opposing parties who have constructive discussions, but can’t agree on how to move forward.
Autocratic or inquisitorial: The manager exhibits majority control over the entire ordeal, from beginning to final decision. This method is ideal for severe cases where the opposing parties are not willing to work together towards a solution.
Providing impetus or motivational control: The reports have full control over the entire ordeal. The manager provides positive or negative incentives to drive a quick resolution. This method is ideal for conflicts that involve a matter of urgency.
Avoidance or ignoring: The manager is completely uninvolved. Not an option. Any conflict between team members that affect the workplace cannot be ignored.

The right approach depends on the severity of the conflict, however, there’s two general rules:

Use the advising and facilitation approach when you can. Let the reports try to work it out amongst themselves first, with you as a guide.
Never avoid or ignore conflict.

A manager’s steps to resolving conflict in the workplace

If you notice there’s tension between two reports, in private, separately inquire about the tension with the involved individuals. You don’t need all the details. You only need enough information to gauge the severity of the issue and understand the cause.
Based on the severity of the situation, set your level of involvement by choosing the appropriate strategy from the six above.
Encourage constructive communication and empathy. Be available to provide guidance or coaching.
Monitor the progress. If tensions continue to escalate and efforts don’t seem to be made towards a resolution, change your approach.
Increase your level of involvement. The last option would be to impose complete autocracy. The hope is to not let it get to this stage.

Additional Tips

There’s a science behind completing your managerial duties to resolve conflicts between reports. Imagine it as baking a cake:

Your actions are the ingredients.

The measure of your actions are crucial to finding a winning solution to the problem: the perfect cake.

Let's say your two reports, named “Baking soda” and “Flour”, have an issue with each other. If you remain neutral, you’ll have the perfect balance of ingredients. Therefore, a setup for the perfect cake. Now, if you were biased towards “Flour” and your biases reflected in your actions, by adding more flour than needed for example, what will you get? A tough and dry cake, which no one wants. Therefore, be conscious of the effect of your actions and maintain the right balance.

The timing of when you get involved = taking the cake out of the oven.

You need to know the right time to step in. Once the conflict starts rising, monitor the progress. You’ll still be able to salvage the situation if you step in sooner. Wait too long and you’ll have to put out a fire.

With the knowledge of the conflict resolution strategies, the step-by-step process, and extra tips, you have the perfect recipe to manage conflict between employees.