Good afternoon and I hope this edition of leadership notes finds you well and working at your best.
I’m presently sitting in the Air Canada Lounge at Regina airport. This small lounge has a TV tuned to a Canadian news channel and a show with two pundits, one right wing and the other left wing, debating, rather loudly, various points around taxation, elections and various other issues. Meanwhile I have spent the past two days working with a great group of managers from credit unions here in Saskatchewan, and one of the main points we discussed was the importance of strong relationships between a manager/leader and his/her immediate reports.
I’ve been thinking that if television is any reflection at all of our culture, those of us who believe strong relationships are key are facing an uphill climb! It seems that the way people are to behave in conflict is to win at any cost, to combat, to fight, to argue, to meet in the marketplace of ideas and keep harping on a position until by attrition, volume or exhaustion, a winner is declared. But such “world wrestling federation” examples of relationships are not accurate, nor healthy models for us to use.
The healthiest relationships include conflict, but managed, honoured and respected conflict. Engaging in conflict is one of the key ways that we learn from each other. And the key to such learning is humilty; approaching a conflict with a position, fair enough, but recognizing in most situations, I may not have all the answers, and there may be more here for me to learn. Or approaching conflict, recognizing that beneath my position are my interests, and by articulating my interests, and listening careful to the other’s interests, we may find much more in common than our respective positions at first suggest.
This week, I hope that we each may find ourselves in healthy conflict, and in that place, find learning and or common ground to move us and our organizations forward.