The role of a manager can be challenging enough without having to deal with tension in their team. Rachel Suff looks at recent CIPD research on managers’ confidence in handling conflict, and how organisations can support them.
With day-to-day responsibility for people management devolved to line managers, they play a pivotal role in preventing and tackling unhealthy conflict in their teams.
They are often the first port of call when an employee has a concern and should aim to diffuse a potentially problematic situation before it escalates into a formal grievance.
However, new CIPD research suggests that many managers lack the confidence and capability needed to resolve conflict effectively.
In fact, all too often they are a negative influence, with half (49%) of employers agreeing that line managers can be a cause of conflict in their teams. This rises to 61% in public sector organisations.
Conflict management
Only a third of staff feel workplace conflicts fully resolved
The survey results relating to the role of managers are very mixed. On the plus side, three-quarters of employers agree that “if there is conflict in a team, a line manager would help to resolve this effectively”, and yet a lack of line management confidence to challenge inappropriate behaviour is the joint-top perceived barrier to managing conflict (cited by 38% of employers).
The other top barrier – a lack of leadership and role-modelling by senior management (38%) – is closely related.
These findings seem highly contradictory but in fact reflect the very real tension in line management’s role.
On the one hand, they carry a great deal of responsibility for managing a team, but without a strong skill set, they can be part of the problem instead of the solution.
Challenging role
Managing people is a big job – and an important one. It typically comes with a range of key responsibilities such as implementing people policies, managing performance and absence and, of course, managing conflict.
Carrying out any of these activities on top of an operational role can be challenging. If a manager hasn’t been trained to be knowledgeable and competent, and doesn’t receive ongoing support and guidance, the task could be very daunting.
But three in 10 employers (30%) don’t provide any training in people management skills to support managers with their line management responsibilities, according to our research.
Line managers are under considerable pressure in the current climate, and many will be managing a potentially complex mix of work, health and personal situations in their teams.
Too often, people management is viewed as an add-on and not as an integral part of a manager’s operational role.
Invest for success
And yet, investing in line management capability could reap significant dividends for the organisation and its ability to foster a more harmonious employment relations culture.
Previous CIPD research found that 79% of employers agreed that ‘if there is conflict within a team, a line manager would help to resolve this quickly’ where managers had been trained compared with 61% where no training had been provided.
Further, 82% agreed that ‘line managers help their team to build healthy relationships’ compared with 56% of organisations where managers hadn’t been trained.
CIPD evidence shows how line managers can be a core part of an organisation’s strategy for tackling unhealthy conflict.
Any employment relations framework that doesn’t understand and nurture its positive role in this regard will fail.
Management development programmes need to imbue them with the skills but also the confidence to be proactive and deal with conflict at the earliest possible stage. This means challenging behaviours that cross the line into being inappropriate and being sensitive to situations where banter becomes bickering.
Managers need to build trust-based relationships in their teams so that they are approachable and can pick up on any underlying tensions between individuals.
There are some encouraging findings on this in our new research, with almost four-fifths of employees reporting that their line manager respects them as a person and treats them fairly (79% and 78%).
Around the same proportion (77%) say their line manager is supportive if they have a problem.
Develop the right culture
With so much responsibility on their shoulders for managing people issues, it can feel safer for managers to be compliance-focused and rely on the perceived safety of formal procedures to resolve conflict.
However, building healthy team relationships and feeling confident to nip conflict in the bud requires more than a focus on policy and procedure. The training offered to managers also needs to give them the courage to be flexible and behave in a way that supports early resolution where possible.
To this end, it’s essential that organisations nurture a psychologically safe culture where people feel safe to speak up and air concerns or differences of opinion.
There should be a focus on informal conflict resolution approaches such as problem-solving, mediation, facilitated discussion and early neutral evaluation.
Specific training for managers in handling difficult or sensitive conversations should be backed up by a performance management process that reinforces positive behaviours on the part of managers.
This wider organisational context of values-based leadership, a competency-based management development programme and a healthy employment relations climate should form the bedrock of effective conflict management.
There is no quick fix to tackling bullying and harassment and managers can’t do it alone. But if all the jigsaw pieces are in place, the result can be managers who are not afraid of tackling unfair treatment head-on and using informal, positive routes to resolution.
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