According to North West law firm Mace & Jones, the recession is prompting an increase in senior level personality conflicts.
The root of the problem apparently lies in staff shortages. As more and more staff are laid off, managers are being forced to work more closely with their teams - managers more used to sitting in the corner office, avoiding unpleasantness.
Mace & Jones' head of employment law Martin Edwards says: "This is leading to personality conflicts as egos clash, insecurities are heightened and areas of responsibilities are redrawn."
He adds that "Personality conflicts are one of the most destructive employment issues in a workplace. Work is disrupted and teams are divided. This in turn leads to poor management, missed targets and bad working environments." All at a time when many companies are struggling to survive.
Edwards recommends tackling the problem head-on, pointing out that "No business can tolerate staff who cannot put their differences aside for the good of the firm. If senior management, the leaders of the business, cannot work together, this is a very serious problem."
The danger here is that companies facing financial problems will not see this as a priority. They will assume, wrongly, that the situation will sort itself out. They may even think - again wrongly - that a bit of temper or inability to work in a team is not a bad thing in a senior manager. By the time they realise the error of their ways, they may well find themselves faced with a tribunal.
Comments (3)
Posted by Ivan Robertson | June 9, 2009 5:24 PM
Of course, at one level, this seems obvious – but is it? I’d like to make a couple of points. The first is that using the term “personality conflicts” places the apparent cause of the conflict in the wrong place by suggesting that it’s related – or even caused by the personalities of the people involved. Actually, that’s not true. It’s the difficult situation that people are working in that’s creating the difficulties, not the people themselves. The second point is that, in general, people are very positive about their relationships with colleagues - and the social relationships that people have at work are an important factor in overall psychological health. When relationships start to break down all sorts of other negative consequences follow.
Posted on June 9, 2009 17:24
Posted by Jez Cartwright | June 9, 2009 5:29 PM
One of the positive things that the recession is doing is bringing to the surface the problems that have always existed but no-one wanted to tackle and the economy meant that they didn’t have to. I wholeheartedly agree with Martin Edwards that this needs to be tackled head on and it should be seen as No.1 priority. If the downturn is teaching us anything it is that people really are the most important part of a business and if the top team cannot get it right then it would be unrealistic to be surprised when the rest of the company does not perform.
Posted on June 9, 2009 17:29
Posted by Stuart Duff | June 9, 2009 6:07 PM
Staff shortages are not the problem. Plenty of organisations have seen staff cuts without increased levels of conflict, while organisations on full staffing still encounter conflicts and personality clashes. The critical issue is pressure. We know that in good times, when everything is running smoothly, we tend to see the ‘bright side’ of people’s personality – the controlled and socially acceptable side to our character. When they feel under pressure, however, people can quickly revert to some fairly basic, self-indulgent behaviour to protect themselves and cope with the anxiety they are experiencing. These behaviours often lead to increases in aggression and conflict, and will no doubt result in higher levels of bullying and harassment cases over the coming months – many of which could go unreported as staff become fearful of rocking the boat.
Posted on June 9, 2009 18:07