Leadership and People Management: Foundations to Practice · Conflict Resolution and Difficult Conversations
Mediating Conflict Between Two Team Members
When two team members are in genuine conflict, a leader's specific approach to mediating it, rather than simply the fact that they intervened at all, determines whether the underlying issue actually gets resolved or is simply suppressed temporarily.
Before bringing two people in conflict together, meeting with each person separately first to genuinely understand their own perspective, without the other person present to react to or dispute it in real time, often surfaces information and underlying concerns that would not be freely shared in a joint conversation, particularly if there is any imbalance in confidence or communication style between the two individuals involved.
- Meeting separately with each person in conflict before bringing them together often surfaces information that wouldn't be freely shared in a joint conversation.
- A leader who forms a clear opinion about who is right before understanding both perspectives risks a conversation that feels like a predetermined verdict.
- Focusing on underlying interests, not just stated positions, can reveal a genuinely workable solution that stated positions alone would obscure.
- Facilitating a direct conversation between the two parties, rather than relaying messages, builds their own capability to resolve similar future conflicts independently.