In a world of constant change people can experience huge amounts of stress and anxiety. And when we aren’t checking ourselves, we may react without being mindful, creating downward spirals where things keep circling around in a negative way.
These pressures can lead to a demotivated workforce, where daily pressures chip away at peoples’ resilience and mental wellbeing.
Furthermore, in such an environment, the important conversations that need to occur for performance are stifled. People simply don’t feel safe enough to speak up and challenge, even if there is a compelling reason for them to do so.
If well managed, constructive conflict enables us to explore and address problems before they escalate and become detrimental to wellness, and to approach issues from a new perspective.
When we become aware of these negative tendencies – the leader who ‘tells it like it is’ or the team mates who react harshly to perceived hurts, we need to move away from being reactive and begin to proactively take steps to address these issues head-on.
Great leaders are aware of their leadership shadow, and mindful of the impact they are having when communicating with their people.
They are thoughtful, rather than unfiltered, and use their emotional intelligence to be aware of self and others, knowing what’s happening within themselves and others, and being careful in how they communicate.
To get the best outcomes, it is also important to consciously seek diverse input from individuals with different perspectives and demonstrate empathy when hearing their responses.
Equal Opportunity / Diversity & Inclusion provides more information about ensuring you maintain equal opportunity, diversity and inclusion when encouraging constructive conflict and robust debate amongst teams.
By maintaining an awareness of the SCARF domains, leaders can influence their teams from an away response to a toward response when engaging in constructive conflict and robust debate.
When we have an organisational culture that enables a diverse range of beliefs and opinions to exist and be articulated, we are likely to identify potential problems proactively and to collaboratively agree the best way forward. It gives us a broader lens, meaning we don’t miss things, as well as creating a sense of buy-in from our teams.
Team Cohesion
When there is Cohesion it means there is sufficient trust that people can engage in robust debate without yelling, banging the table, moving to an authoritative position etc.
A shared understanding of what’s happening in your culture is outlined in Know Your Culture.
Call To Action
What does this look like for you?
The first step to addressing reactive and destructive behaviours is to identify them. The strategies in Promote and Regularly Audit Behaviours, will help you develop a good grasp of the reactive and destructive behaviours you want to avoid, and you may even have identified ‘hot spots’ in your organisation where they may be occurring.
Once you’ve identified if reactive behaviours are negatively impacting communication between your people, leaders then need to work to build relationships that promote more open discussion about employee emotions and step in to correct behaviours within their team that compromise the mental wellbeing of their people.
This important work is incorporated into the Integrated Approach during the Team Culture and Performance phase.
Taking it Further
If your people are already engaging in constructive conflict and robust debate effectively, perhaps it’s time to expand and build on your learning culture to encourage open and honest exploration of challenges inherent to your organisation / industry and work to resolve those issues.