Organizational Conflict

Navigating conflict, particularly within our organizations, makes many leaders uncomfortable. This is both understandable – and changeable. 

Public organizations must represent and serve the full breadth of our communities’ values, interests, and needs. As a leader, how do you do that when your community is deeply divided?

A good place to start is by broadening your own understanding of the issues to the point where you genuinely know not just what different factions in your community believe about the issue … but also why they hold those views. A school superintendent I worked with in my youth was known for asking school and community leaders to “make yourself vulnerable to the legitimacy of other people’s perspectives.” 

Making yourself open to the possibility that another person’s perspective is as valid as your own doesn’t mean you have to agree with them. As leaders, we do not give up our rights to our own perspectives and opinions, but we *have* accepted an additional responsibility to truly, genuinely understand the concerns of those we serve, and to take those concerns into account as we lead.

In this episode we shift from considering conflict as an interpersonal experience, and instead explore conflict at the organizational level with both philosophical and practical ideas.

I’d like to equip you with a few strategies that you can use when you find yourself leading your organization through conflict. A few examples we’ll explore include: 

• World Cafe,

• Open Space, 

• and an idea I like to call the Middle School Science Fair approach. 

For more about addressing organizational conflict, with anecdotes and examples, check out Episode #5 of my podcast, Your Friend In Leadership.

Until next time, friends, remember this: You matter, and the work you do as a leader matters.

The most straightforward way to understand this paradigm shift is a quote from the late Bill Mester, “make yourself vulnerable to the legitimacy of someone else’s perspectives.”