3 Ways That Leaders Can Nurture Conflict Resilience in Their Organization

Many leaders are concerned about the impact of interpersonal conflicts on their organization but feel they lack the necessary skills or time to address them effectively. In this article, we explore how leaders can make a meaningful difference by how they show up, respond to, and navigate conflict in the workplace. By honoring dignity, demonstrating curiosity, and practicing humility, leaders can cultivate a culture of conflict resilience that strengthens relationships and fosters a healthier, more inclusive work environment.

I often meet with leaders who are concerned about the impacts of interpersonal conflicts on their organization or business. They want to support colleagues and employees but say they do not have the right skill set or the time. They often wish that employees could navigate interpersonal conflicts on their own.

Skillfully supporting anyone in an interpersonal conflict does take skill and experience. It also takes self-awareness and self-confidence. We need to devote time as well, more than a friendly conversation on the way to get a coffee! And yes, we often need an expert to support with conflict coaching or mediation.

However, leaders can make an impactful difference by the way they show up for, respond to, and navigate interpersonal conflict in their workplace themselves. Honoring people’s dignity, demonstrating genuine curiosity toward colleagues, and showing up with humility all support a culture of conflict resilience.

Leaders who avoid challenging conversations and diverse views, or who are consistently defensive, may be communicating a lack of self-awareness and self-confidence to colleagues and employees. Similarly, leaders who tend to aim toward pleasing others may be sending a message that they lack the capacity to express their views, make clear decisions, or set healthy boundaries.

A conflict-resilient organization has space for diversity in lived experience and views, fosters open conversation about change, and encourages healthy boundary setting.

I suggest that conflict resilience is our capacity to expand our responsiveness to a changing dynamic in an interpersonal relationship. This includes our capacity to receive a request or feedback without immediately resisting and our capacity to allow space for curiosity and listening to understand.

Here are three ways that leaders can nurture a culture of conflict resilience in workplaces:

1. Honor people’s dignity

As leaders, we want our employees to feel good at work. We want to co-create a workplace that supports well-being and where people feel psychologically safe enough to express their views and take risks in their work.

Even when we are facing challenging behavior or ideas, we can still honor a person’s dignity in our response.

We might ask ourselves:

• Am I trying to show the other person that I am better, smarter, or more important?

• Do I need to win this conversation?

• Am I being transparent about my limitations?

• How else could I respond to the situation?

• What is one thing I can do right now to show the other person that I am not going to shut them down?

When I am in a situation where I do not agree with what is being presented, I look for a point that I can genuinely agree with and start from there. I look for where I can genuinely say, “Yes, I appreciate what you are saying, and I agree with your decision. And I wonder if we can also further consider…”

2. Demonstrate genuine curiosity

Asking good questions is a key skill in building conflict resilience. When faced with an interpersonal conflict in a meeting or team setting, a leader might offer open-ended questions to demonstrate they support the exchange of ideas in the organization. For example:

• That sounds interesting, can you tell us more about your idea?

• What would we need to do to implement your suggestion?

• How can you contribute to what you are proposing?

• What are other ways that we can consider this situation?

To encourage employees to reflect together on organizational learnings, performance, and experience, leaders can purposefully create regular spaces for open dialogue about the organization’s work.

3. Practice humility

A leader who is able to openly acknowledge that they made a mistake or managed a difficult situation poorly models to colleagues that they are safe to do the same.

To support employee growth and maturity, leaders can encourage employees to engage in a difficult conversation rather than avoid it by demonstrating their own capacity to sit with discomfort.

A leader can practice humility by:

• Acknowledging the challenge: For example, “This is a really difficult conversation for me, but I am with you and listening as best I can.”

• Not trying to fix the situation right away: For example, “I may not be able to fully address your concerns today, but I do commit to following up and setting up a time when we can discuss again.”

• Being accountable: For example, “I understand from what you are saying that I have some accountability for this situation, and I want to do what I can to address that.”

To sum up, there is a lot that leaders can do in their organization to practice and demonstrate their own capacity to navigate interpersonal conflict. This contributes to a workplace culture that supports employee well-being, integrates differing views and lived experience, and ultimately nurtures conflict resilience.