Understanding how team members are truly experiencing the workplace can be challenging for leaders. One team member may appear perturbed during a meeting. Another grows quiet and stares at her notepad. But what if their demeanor is more about tension brewing between them? What if unresolved interpersonal tension is quietly affecting team trust and collaboration?
While it can be puzzling to understand work relationship dynamics, there are proven ways to harness healthy conflict, develop strong teams, and address disagreements constructively. When relational conflict arises, participating in open dialogue, active listening, and respectful conversations can preserve and rebuild trust.
Organizations are a blend of employees with varying career experiences, ages, genders, perspectives, and work styles. Vibrancy of ideas and approaches can advance creative solutions and growth. Yet within the range of skill sets and personalities, differing viewpoints and work methods often arise.
Jesus encountered this with the disparate band of brothers he recruited. Some were more boisterous, while others were softer in disposition. The twelve did not always see eye to eye. Notably, with all their unique contributions and let’s-take-on-the-world enthusiasm, these disciples also needed to learn to communicate clearly and to work cohesively alongside Jesus. We can do the same.
One of the most important decisions you can make is how to approach interpersonal conflict and model healthy responses for your team. Leaders play a key role in bringing misunderstandings into the open to strengthen teamwork and bolster work performance. Let’s consider four strategies for navigating work relationships and collaboration that will strengthen employee engagement and keep the mission clear.
Flourishing workplaces foster open communication, and employees know it’s okay to share differing opinions and perspectives. Organizations thrive when new ideas and innovation are encouraged, yet disparate points of view can sometimes lead to tension and miscommunication.
People look to leaders for wisdom and guidance to help navigate this tension. Leading with openness and transparency is a great starting point, as it communicates directness and sincerity. A “we-have-nothing-to-hide” core value builds trust among employees, customers, sponsors, donors, and the community at large.
Transparent leadership means people experience you as honest and clear in how decisions are made and communicated. When leaders practice transparency, team members feel informed, valued, and more confident in the organization's direction and decisions.
How do you address employee concerns and difficulties? When your team members bring an issue to your attention, consider how openness and transparency build trust across your teams.
When one church learned it was the lowest-ranked congregation nationwide on the Best Christian Workplaces Employee Engagement Survey, instead of glossing over this humbling score, the lead pastor openly shared the results. As a transparent leader, he didn’t want even a hint of secrecy to dampen the trust among his staff and congregants.
Every day, companies worldwide employ business strategies that identify and resolve potential service breakdowns before customers are affected. This forward-thinking approach, called proactive recovery, restores organizational operations before a failure happens. We can glean insights from this practice to apply to work relationships, too.
For example, you set a meeting for Monday and a coworker comes to you on Friday morning saying, “I’m sorry, but I didn’t budget my time well, and I cannot make that meeting on Monday.” You appreciate the heads-up and plan accordingly. Alternatively, if the person doesn’t inform you at all that they need to miss the meeting or waits until later in the day on Monday to say, “I couldn’t attend,” that can create frustration and mistrust.
Proactive recovery means coming forward and being transparent about a missed deadline, a quality standard not being met, or a milestone not being reached. When you model proactive recovery, others will bring small problems forward before they become larger, and it also allows team members to offer ideas to resolve them. Trust and teamwork can be built when people know about problems in advance.
Everyone makes mistakes, but those mistakes do not define who we are. Errors are an opportunity for a positive course correction. When employees know it is safe to fail—and that there is grace and room for growth—they are more willing to acknowledge mistakes, which creates space for healthier conflict resolution.
A leader who comes clean about making a mistake earns greater respect from peers and employees. Setting aside pride and worry over one’s image fosters greater transparency about slip-ups and missteps.
Contentions between staff do not typically arise from a single miscommunication or misunderstanding. Understandably, it seems easier to overlook small issues, but avoiding a needed conversation can escalate frustrations, one failed task and one small miscue at a time. Addressing concerns early prevents a deeper breakdown later.
Consider a situation in which a conversation became awkward when a strong opinion about a deadline was voiced during a meeting. The silence of the team members signaled to the person who spoke, and she attempted to apologize. Everyone else assured her that it was fine and she shouldn’t worry about it. But that led to another incident at the next meeting because no one addressed the behavior directly. She wasn't invited to the third meeting because others didn’t want it to happen again. In today’s world, that might be seen as “cancel culture,” but it has been going on since time began, and it is called “interpersonal conflict.” You can learn to address small issues gently and firmly, prevent their escalation, and mitigate their negative impact.
Many workplaces suffer from unaddressed conflicts, and people are unsure what to do about them. It can literally take the joy out of otherwise rewarding work. Your example in modeling healthy conflict is key. You can start today by modeling the way. That looks like being open and transparent, practicing proactive recovery, and letting people know it’s safe to make mistakes and learn from them. You can also encourage by addressing small conflicts before they escalate. Christian-led workplaces repair relationships instead of removing people, as our cancel culture society often promotes. Inspirational leaders can learn to manage with discernment, foster safety in hard conversations, and model redemptive conflict resolutions.
Flourishing workplaces are not conflict-free—they are led by leaders who navigate conflict with wisdom, humility, and grace. To learn how healthy conflict can build trust, strengthen relationships, and foster unity, download our free guide Disagree with Purpose: Fostering Healthy Conflict.
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