Managing difficult situations
Being able to successfully manage conflict and challenge whether personally or between others, is part of providing good leadership. Creating work environments where disagreements or misunderstandings are less likely to happen should be the aim, however when difficulties do arise it’s how effectively you manage and diffuse them that counts. We often think that situations have been resolved but they keep bubbling under the surface and eventually turn into crises.
How we react to conflict or challenge is very personal and we may need to learn to respond or behave in a way that is less instinctive or comfortable, particularly if we’re dealing with conflicts between team members or peers. My courses help the candidates to develop greater self-awareness and the ability to manage their emotional response and react in a way that best serves the situation or people involved. Once we can effectively manage how we are likely to react to challenge, misunderstandings and potential conflicts we can then help others manage them too.
Case Study
I was asked by a Leading International Design and Engineering Consultancy to create a one-day course to give people the confidence and tools to help them manage difficult situations more effectively. We wanted to create a course that would allow people to share personal experiences and learn from one another, explore ‘how’ to manage their emotional response to challenge in a safe environment and then use role-play to put what they’d learned into practice.
Course objectives – to help the candidates:
- Develop greater self-awareness of how they behave under pressure or when challenged
- Understand how to manage their response and ‘step back’ from the situation
- Put in preventative measures so that situations are less likely to arise or escalate
- Deal with issues at the right time and in the right way
- Know ‘how’ to manage a difficult conversation
- Practice what they’ve learnt via role-play