Tips for CEOs - How to Resolve Conflicts in a Team

As the CEO, do you at times find yourself spending a critical portion of your productive hours in resolving conflicts among your team members?

In other words, the time which could have been invested in more result-oriented jobs is spent on the rather unproductive and at times even frustrating job of resolving conflict.

A team comprises people with different personalities and each team member comes with his/her own set of perceptions. Quite naturally, there are bound to be some conflicts in a team over marketing strategies, budget, goals, product details, recruitment plans, operational plans and so on.

In the corporate world, you are required to attend innumerable meetings, hold discussions, travel and work together. Disagreements lead to conflicts and negativity. And it makes things tough for the CEO to play the mediator in his team and make his team reach a consensus.

Resolving issues in a team needs clear vision, honesty, focus and logical reasoning on part of the CEO. Here are some useful tips on how you can resolve conflicts in your team:

Refrain from taking sides

As the CEO, avoid taking sides. It can lead to further disharmony. Take your time to listen to the arguments and complaints of everyone involved. Make it clear to your employees that they should not approach you directly with the problem, unless they have talked to the concerned people first and tried their best to sort out the issue amongst themselves.

In case, if the employees have talked between themselves and yet have not been able to reach a conclusion (which happens many a time); then try to intervene, meet up with the quarrelling employees and remedy the situation before it gets worse.

This is the time when your leadership qualities are put to best use. Get everyone concerned in a room, listen patiently to both sides and then draw a logical conclusion.

Encourage one on one conversation

Nowadays, we are so dependent on technology; we fail to connect with others on a personal level. Try and encourage your employees to have one to one conversation rather than sorting the issue vie e-mails, or text messaging.

Even talking over the phone does not give you a correct idea about the other person’s facial expressions, reactions or body language. The best way to resolve any conflict is to talk face-to-face.

Provide a healthy environment

As the CEO, you should be alert enough to identify a conflict at an initial level and nip it in the bud. Generally most of the conflicts are the result of long outstanding misunderstandings between employees.

You can prevent such a situation from arising by providing a friendly environment at workplace where all employees are treated equally. Provide a well-defined job distribution system where each employee is given work according to his/her true abilities, productivity level and knowledge.

Find guidance at CEO clubs

If you require some guidance regarding handling conflicts in your team, join a CEO peer group where you get to meet experienced and learned experts. You can share your fears and ideas without any inhibitions and receive honest advice from the experts themselves.

The experts at CEO peer groups are experienced CEOs and leaders themselves who have been through situations, you are going through right now and can better guide and support you.

Moreover, mingling with the experts and other members (who are from non-competent industries) allow you to hone your leadership qualities and help you make better decisions.

Conflicts can be good

Remember, a conflict is not always a bad thing. If addressed properly, a conflict can lead to innovative ideas, and learning opportunities. As the CEO, you should not avoid conflicts, rather address them. Handling conflicts at workplace can be the test of your leadership abilities.