Why do managers avoid confrontation with employees?

Most people dislike confrontation in their lives – in their personal lives or in their workplace – although we’ve all met people who seem to thrive on it.

Most people are not skilled in handling confrontation and conflict. However, the development of these skills is essential for all managers. Any manager who works with people will, at some time, feel they need training in resolving conflict and dealing with conformation, whether it’s a short training class, a seminars or a program of practical workshops.

In any event, turning a blind eye to conflict isn’t an option.

There is potential for confrontations in every situation where people interact – at work, at home and with family. Generally, people have limited experience of resolving conflict. Strategies you use in your personal life may not be strategies which are directly transferable to a work situation.

A manager needs a variety of styles and options to draw upon which suit the problem of the day and the people involved in the issues.

Turning a blind eye is never an option when there is confrontation and conflict in the workplace. There are no exceptions. Conflict can be ruinous to a team if it goes unresolved and will influence the productivity of a team. There are well documented examples of a team being directly influenced, becoming de-motivated which results in a project being sabotaged by conflict.

It’s a manager’s job to sort it out and team members rightly expect a manager to show leadership in doing that. Many managers have lost the respect of their team because they shirk their management responsibilities in this area. Unresolved conflict can become toxic.

Even if the situation is one where everyone knows that a conflict between two people is entirely personal, the manager cannot turn a blind eye. The manager must tell the people involved to work out their differences – outside of work hours – and that if they don’t resolve their difficulties; action will have to be taken by the manager.

Conflict can be good. I know that’s likely to come as a surprising statement but if conflict leads to improvement and change and is well managed, the people involved can, ultimately, be glad the conflict happened.

Most people and most managers have limited experience in how to manage conflict in teams and what experience they do have is usually based on experience from their personal lives – as children and as adults. At home people may be used to arguments involving some shouting and then perhaps the combatants spend time on their own to calm down, maybe one person goes out to the garage while the other stomps around the house or plays computer games for an hour or so. This is completely inappropriate and unhelpful in the workplace and to be avoided.

In a busy work life, it may be hard to search out and schedule program of training. Training programs are often at inconvenient times and seem never to be scheduled when the need for training is most needed.

At home, family understand you and maybe you know they’ll take no notice of your grumpiness today because they know you’re in a bad mood already because of something else – they’re willing to cut you some slack. In the workplace only adult behavior in dealing with confrontation and conflict is acceptable and appropriate.

There are very few problems which can’t be improved and resolved completely by the parties involved coming around a table for a calm discussion (with a mug of tea is best in my experience ha ha).

What is an essential requirement is: willingness on both sides.

At risk of singling out a particular group, enquiries to us seem to suggest there are often confrontation events in nursing. Many reasons come to mind. Nurses are often under great pressure and on occasion a nurse may come into conflict with coworkers and managers as a result of tiredness and stress. Training in communication skills and

Don’t attempt to bring the co-worker to their knees. Instead, bring them to the table.

How Do Leaders Develop Employees?

The development of individual employees to bring out the best in them doesn’t happen overnight, by magic or by just hoping employees will develop.

The leaders in a business – the CEO and all the managers – must first let their employees know that management want to develop employees and that management would be pleased if employees show themselves as wanting to develop. Many companies don’t do this. They assume that all employees know… but they don’t.

The management’s desire for employee development needs to be plainly stated and clearly demonstrated as incontrovertible fact so that staff don’t perceive it as just an unsubstantiated statement.

Staff will then be aware of their true worth to the company.

Without a plan for developing people, nothing will happen so CEOs and managers must do the essential groundwork.

The groundwork involves CEOs and managers getting together to discuss the benefits to the company of having an effective employee and leadership development program. Managers need also to consider the costs to the company in turnover if productivity and morale are lowered because there isn’t an employee development program in existence.

How to motivate employees is a constant and key concern of all managers. Unmotivated employees can be a burden to a company and can necessitate executives investing a great deal of time and energy into improving morale and productivity. It’s far better to invest valuable manager time and energy and the business’ money into an employee development program.

Management need to identify the characteristics of employees who are already successful or have been most successful in the company and identify:

• The training experiences they had
• Their educational background
• Their years of experience
• How they fit the company culture
• Their personality style
• What motivates them

A newsletter or a weekly e-mail to all employees, publishing the business’ intention to develop employees would be a method of marketing a company’s intentions. Whatever form it takes, it would be a document that states the company’s intention to actively develop employees.

An in-house class, seminar or half day course would be a good way to begin to inform employees of a new development program.

Before making further plans it’s important to consider what would go into a successful program.

See also this article – “Successful Leadership Programs”

What is the importance of appearance on a job interview?

Often people do all the appropriate work to land an interview which will further their career. They work on a perfect resume and a great attention-grabbing cover letter. They research interviewing techniques, ask someone to coach them and pre-plan great questions and answers but then they risk failure by not doing the practical preparation work which can mean success or failure.

Here are some tips and some practical information to ensure your preparation is complete.

First, consider your appearance – it really matters. On the interview day, it’s the initial impression a candidate for a job gives the interviewer.

Think about the clothes you’ll wear. What colors suit you? Do you know? Many people – men and women – don’t know what colors suit their skin tone. If you have to wear a navy suit and navy isn’t your color, you can choose a shirt or blouse which is your color to make the outfit more flattering. How do you tell? With your face bare and natural – no additions – hold a range colors up to the side of your head – one at a time. Do some colors drain the natural color from your face? Do others make you look healthy and well? Go with what makes you look your best. Ask advice from your friends “which color makes me look good?”

What style of clothes is appropriate? Mostly it will be formal, professional clothes that you wear for an interview but there are exceptions. I know one young guy, R, who went for an interview for the job of a manager in the music industry. When he arrived in his business suit and tie, everyone thought he had come to repair the photocopier! His prospective boss who interviewed him looked like a tramp compared to R but it’s always better to be over-dressed that under-dressed. It shows you have the right attitude – respect for the interviewer and the interview process. If you normally wear a stud in your nose or eyebrow, take it out… unless you know for sure that the person who will be interviewing you has face piercing.

Once you’ve decided what to wear, be sure everything is clean and pressed and ready to be put on.

Here are some other pointers for preparation for interviews you’ll want to consider.

The technology and language at your disposal can help or hinder you in finding your dream employment. Before you contact any recruitment consultants, consider your voice mail message. What does it say about you?

Sometimes interviewers are put off and don’t contact an applicant because of the voice mail message or the voice they hear when they call to ask a candidate to attend an interview. If it’s a cute or fun voice mail message or in Mickey Mouse’s voice – beware. One time I heard.

“Hi, we’re either having a party and can’t hear the phone or we can’t be bothered answering right now so just leave us a message”.

I didn’t leave a message and I crossed the person off the list.

For more great tips on interviews and to avoid more pitfalls, take a look at “Preparing for Your Interview“

You’ll find “Careless words can lose you the job” and other “must have” information on the importance of appearance on a job interview.

“I need to fix this..NOW”

Do your departmental meetings go on and on? Do team members turn up late or don’t attend at all?

You know this situation very well…..

It’s 8.00pm, you’ve already had a hard day at work. In the morning, for the first time, you have to manage a department meeting because your boss won’t be in the office – he only told you as you were finishing off for the day – and you’ve never chaired a meeting before.

Immediately after the meeting, you have to have a difficult conversation with that lazy guy in legal. That was in your diary but you’ve never given someone a warning before and you thought you had the whole evening to prepare for it.

You want to get a full night’s sleep without worrying. It’s 3 hours until bedtime. You have to get the meeting and the hard conversation planned and sewn up so you’re “ready to go” – the minute you get to work.

In the last hour, since you got home, you’ve researched on the Internet and you’ve skimmed some books but all you’ve got is theory and that’s not what you need right now. It feels that you are just going round and round the issue, the background, what various management gurus think etc etc.

You want to yell “I don’t need all this. I need to know EXACTLY how to do it – NOW”

AND

Does your boss drop tasks on you?

For instance…….

You’ve had a crazy, mad month and tonight you’ve planned an evening with a new friend. You’re really looking forward to it. You walk with your boss to the car park on your way home and he says “let’s get together at 9am for a quick meeting to plan how we can improve performance appraisals this year”.

Your heart sinks because all you know is the current appraisal system – are there other models?. If you try to get out of it, your boss will think you know nothing. How can you get the knowledge you need in the one hour you have between arriving home and your dinner date?

5 minute guides will give you good quality information to get you started, enough for you to make an informed and intelligent contribution to the discussion in the morning or to chair the meeting. They are based on sound management theory and buy you time to read up on it tomorrow or on the weekend.

When you need to know how to deal with today’s problems – fast – check out our Five Minute Guides.

“Can I get more information on..”

We’re reviewing our performance appraisal process. I want more information so that I can contribute to the meeting.

Our “Manager Briefings” will give you additional “how to” information which will take you about 15 minutes to read.

They are concise, practical, focused solutions for Managers who haven’t got the time – right now – to read around the task they have to do tomorrow or this week.

“Manager Briefings” gives you the “know how” to use today.

They are not theory but are based on sound, tried and tested theory.

“I have a question…”

I’m a lot younger than all the people in the team I manage. I want to gain their respect and be able to lead them.

This is an example of a question we received from one of our members.

When you need more information on something specific or you’d like some guidance on how to approch a situation, use our “Ask Elizabeth & Jack” page to ask your question.

Your question will be anonymous and in total confidence.

There are occasions when it’s not appropriate to ask someone at work about an issue. Your boss may think you’re not up to the job if you mention it or maybe the obvious person to ask at work may be too close to the problem to give you a balanced view.

You may feel you need independent advice on the range of options you think you have and you want to get another view.

Friends and family may not be familiar with your management situation. In some cases, the topic may require friends and family to be unbiased and not favor you in their response.

We’ll get right back to you with an answer. If it’s a topic of general interest to managers, we may also write a 5-minute guide or a manager briefing. Be assured though, if we use your question in this way, we’ll change every possible facet of it so there will be no possibility that you and your company could be identified.

Ask a Question now!