Leadership and Conflict

Leadership, or the lack of it, usually becomes most apparent whenever there are tough issues to deal with and these usually entail conflict of one kind and another.  Impasse, lack of momentum, interpersonal tension or loss of direction can often be tracked down to conflict and lack of the leadership needed to resolve or transform it.  When the stakes are high, as is often the case in organisational or community conflict, it is then that transformative leadership is required.

While most of us are getting stuck in on one side or the other (openly or covertly), acidulously avoiding conflict or pretending that it is not happening, the leader is paying attention and taking the risk of engaging.  Leaders too are on the look out for dissonance or misalignments between values, mission, vision, strategy, operations and outcomes as it is such conflict which saps the energy of the enterprise or signals the opportunity for innovation and increased productivity,

Most conflict in our organisations is seen as transactional in nature and sorted out through power and rights contests or compromise that rarely results in a satisfactory outcome for all sides.  Leaders, when they do engage, are often judge and jury or at best referee, impartial or otherwise.  The winners win and the losers, if they are still around, live to create more havoc and retaliate when the time is right.  Compromise ensures there are no outright winners or losers but often, neither is there satisfactory closure. Such solutions are often the cause of the next conflict and simply recapitulate it in another form. The leadership challenge is to work with differences and passions in a way that minimises their destructive potential and harnesses the energy they generate for innovation, growth and productivity.  So what does a transformational approach demand of the leader?

Conflict is a bit like the proverbial iceberg and it is usually treated as if only the bits above the waterline (what is in awareness - the behaviours, the content, the characters in conflict, etc.) are all that needs to be dealt with.  If the leader is not aware that most of the iceberg is below the water and has a major bearing on the outcome, the surprise will be as nasty as Pandora's box.  The leader's consciousness of the field of conflict needs to extend below the waterline to the generative forces at play, be ready for their emergence into consciousness and not be unbalanced by their appearance. This often requires a deepening of inquiry and extension of understanding rather than leaping into action or premature re-solutions.  Many are surprised and humbled by the complexity of what they find and the empathy and compassion engendered by it.

The leader (not necessarily the appointed or positional leader) will be the first to let go of the battle of messages and open themselves to the potentially transformative experience of what is below the waterline and conscious awareness.  Being open in this way requires a vulnerability and courage to face the loss and transformation of the self and one's identity and an uncertain or unknown outcome.  It was this that Ghandi meant when he suggested we must become the change we wish to bring about.

In order to do this the leader has got to be convinced that the mission or vision of which they are in service is more important than themselves, as they must be willing, if necessary, to sacrifice themselves for its sake.  Today this rarely entails sacrificing one's life but it may well entail sacrificing one's job or popularity and almost certainly means experiencing many psychological or ego-death experiences and self-transformations.   Few leaders are currently as committed or ready for such a transformational approach but the potency they display is easily recognisable when you encounter them.  Robert Quinn in his book Deep Change suggests that if leaders are not betting their jobs every few years they are not leading and their organisations may be undergoing a slow death.

Conflict can be a force for entropy or a source of renewal. The wise leader chooses the latter. They learn to sit in the fire, having created a container through commitment and relationship that can sustain the heat and enable transformation of opposites and differences to take place. Once this container and commitment is in place (often with the help of a skilled facilitator to begin with) the exchange can move from polite conversation to heated exchange, addressing the undiscussables; risking openness to transformation rather than just defending one's position or protecting one's ego; trusting that by leaving the safe haven of one's comfort zone, certainty or identity, that one will find a new stability beyond the conflict that brought you there, a new consciousness and a more empowering perspective. 

The leader will often be able to increase the heat or ease it down whether by increasing the pressure for change, introducing an amount of disturbing information into the system or increasing awareness. Pacing the level of heat so it is sufficient to enable the transformation to take place, but without over-heating with explosive consequences, depends on the awareness and sensitivity of the leader. There is a thin dividing line and the positional leader may not be the only agent with access to the heat controls.

The disrupter, disturber, opposer, though usually seen as a troublemaker, is often a new leader in the making and, like the quickly maturing young stag, they may be unpredictable and undisciplined.  They may be unable to sustain the focus, discipline or the perseverance needed to engage transformatively with the old and bring in the new.  It may take many unsuccessful attempts before the disturber succeeds and even then, it may take some time before they can lose their identity as challenger and don the mantle of leader, vision holder and advocate.  Far from being a disease or an abnormality, conflict is the life-blood of adaptation and evolution.  The wise leader does well to welcome the disturber.

An organisation can avoid conflict or stamp it out to help attain stability and achieve its aims. It does this by establishing conformity and compliance through power or pecking orders that are reinforced by observance, reward and sanction.  It can establish rules, roles, conventions and procedures, which minimise conflict through the regulation of interfaces and interaction. Once observed, harmony is maintained.  However, such maintenance of the status quo and established hierarchies is not in the interests of evolution, growth and change, which thrive on diversity and unhindered interaction. The more leaders succeed in stamping out conflict the more likely the organisation is to be on the slow road to organisational death.  The wise leader learns to live in and thrive on conflict while learning to minimise the potentially destructive forces unleashed when the dance of diversity is engaged.

However it is not just the appointed leader who needs to be convinced that the mission and vision is worth the sacrifice of one's comfort, relationship, identity or role attachments. Those in the community or organisation must also be convinced. Building shared vision becomes a central practice of the leader in order to transcend or transform conflict. Too many leaders try to sell the vision, induce people to follow, or even coerce.  High salaries, status, perks and power are not sufficient to sustain commitment to the deep work of conflict transformation and organisational renewal and even may work against it. 

The transformational way of conflict requires that the enterprise is deeply meaningful both to the leader and the organisation. Increasingly, vision-building methods such as Future Search and Dialogue are being used to connect and engage stakeholders and followers in the formation and ownership of the vision.  Further, when people are assured of a role in continual refinement and renewal this ensures that values, mission and vision are more likely to be aligned and a potent force for both motivation and containment.  The transformational approach thrives and delivers in such a context.

Insights and Questions