Workplace Personality Conflicts: Seek Results Not Revenge | #leadership
by Kate Nasser | 9 Comments »
Workplace Personality Conflicts: Results Beat Revenge
In a previous post on people skills for social media greatness, I highlighted specific well-intentioned behaviors that can offend and block success.
One reader commented that anyone can get offended so it’s a wash. Getting even is fair play, right? No, not right. It’s a sad descent into workplace personality conflicts that are very avoidable with professional people skills.
Workplace Personality Conflicts: Seek Results Not Revenge. Image by: Istock.com
There are serious business consequences to employees seeking revenge instead of results. Perhaps the biggest one is missing out on what teams can achieve with professional people skills vs. the resulting isolation of workplace personality conflicts.
Workplace Personality Conflicts: Seek Results Not Revenge
Tugs-of-war over personality styles stifle communication — the instrument of success. Leaders who realize the power of coaching employees through workplace personality conflicts also realize great long term results. They don’t let differences isolate team members and block success.
These leaders address silent tugs-of-war and more active workplace personality conflicts.
- Who does the adapting? Everyone. When employees approach you with issues of communication style differences, coach all to adapt to reach great results.
- Which one of the personality types produces the best results in business? None of them. Business is complex. It involves people with different occupational views. These people have different personality and communication styles. It is the fusion of natural talents that delivers results.
- What is the difference between a tug-of-war and a lively disagreement of ideas? Tugs-of-war are not productive. Active discussions of differing views are. Tugs-of-war strive to maintain position to win. Active discussions explore and adapt to achieve a shared success. Teams and organizations succeed when employees adapt to and work with different communication styles not battle over which communication style is right! Strive to be excellent, not right.
The Questions That Transform Workplace Personality Conflicts
When personality style differences appear, ask yourselves:
- What can I learn from this person?
- How will I grow from working with this different style?
- What results can we achieve through this diversity that we can’t without it?
- How can I move toward results while still respecting the other persona’s views and personality style?
- How can I best ask for respect of my style while still contributing to the end results?
- What common ground do we have that we can elevate for success?
- How can we communicate well even with all our differences?
High performing teams share an incredible desire for results. Revenge toward each other is not their motivator. They contribute their skills, knowledge and talent. They flex and adapt to turn diversity into golden nuggets of success.
Inspire them to flex and adapt. Book the Quick Spot & Adapt™ workshop. By moving past the typical personality labels, this workshop has people quickly spotting differences and adapting easily. Join the thousands who have attended this powerful and fun workshop. They have learned and use the people skills Quick Spot & Adapt™ techniques to replace workplace personality conflicts with success!
How well are your teams doing? Are they stuck in silent tugs-of-war over personality differences or easily tapping diversity to produce tremendous results?
From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People Skills Coach™
Related Posts:
GPS Your Brain to Work w/ Any Personality Type
People Skills Secret Revealed for Introverts & Extroverts
Respect the Differences, Love the Differences, Find the Fit!
Leadership: Risks of Mislabelling Issues as Workplace Personality Conflicts
Teambuilding Across Generations – Proven Approach
©2012-2015 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. I appreciate your sharing the link to this post on your social streams. However, if you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please email info@katenasser.com for permission and guidelines. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.
Kate Nasser, The People Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on leading change, employee engagement, teamwork, and delivering the ultimate customer service. She turns interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.
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~Kate Nasser, The People Skills Coach™
Kate:
Great article! I recently went to a meeting where a group of well established leaders got together to determine if their were ways that we could collaborate. Wow when it works it is amazing! I was blown away by the authenticity of everyone, the sharing and collaboration was amazing! As the discussions were taking place I sat back at one point and wished we had taped this.
We need to keep striving to foster this environment! As I move forward with this new team, I am so excited about what we can accomplish when we work together!
The interesting thing is I found out about this meeting 48 hours before it was scheduled due to technical difficulties. It was going to be on a Saturday 1 1/2 hours from where I live. I liked the agenda so I went and it turned into one of the most interesting refreshing days I have had in a long time!
Hi Cheri,
I could feel the spirit of that room through your enthusiastic comment. This is where success thrives — in authentic collaboration. There is much you can do to keep it going:
-Clarify never assume
-When you are frustrated, search for the value
-When spirits are low, celebrate talent
Many thanks for your contribution here. Just reading your inspired me!
Warmest regards,
Kate
I can relate very much with Cheri’s comment. I’ve taken over (well so far not official but i’m running the show for now) a section in my IT department and I can see lots of politics running among the members of the team. I really need to have such a meeting to dissolve such barries within the team so we can start fresh.
There is one guy who always conflict with my opinion. That guy is in competition with me to being promoted to my existing seat (supervisor of the section). His comments although sometimes annoying but I can see other times very helpful to me to add to my supervision arsenel. He is my friend and our competition is only at work so nothing personal but sometimes this gets so frustrated when it prolong! So your question Kate “•How can I best ask for respect of my style while still contributing to the end results?” is very important to keep in mind!
Thanks for your great posts 🙂
Regards,
Khalid
You are most welcome Khalid. The scenario you mention is quite common and important to handle. If I can be of direct assistance, feel free to email me!
Kate
Another great distinction to make, Kate. We are all unique by our nature, and we need to accept our differences. What helps keep engaging discussions rather than tugs-of-war is having the context understood. In other words, what are we trying to accomplish within the agreed to strategy? Now, if the context in which people are working is not agreed to, then there are bigger challenges to resolve. Getting the context right will help embrace our differences to make the work even more successful. Thanks for the great thoughts you deliver! Jon
Exactly Jon. Context and shared vision/goals can keep communication flowing to success vs. stuck in a tug-of-war. When leaders embrace just how important meaningful communication is to team success, the results are remarkable.
Many thanks,
Kate
Kate,
I like the way you have differentiated between tug-of-war and lively disagreement over ideas. Most people are aware that teams have to learn how to have productive conflict as they develop. However, whether this conflict is a tug-of-war of a lively disagreement depends on the level of trust that has been built within the team. This trust depends on, as you have said, understanding how personality types differ and appreciating the different qualities.
However, I have found that different personality types view conflict differently. What some people see as productive debate other people see as destructive arguing. I believe helping people see these differences is a key aspect of building trust in a team.
Terry
I agree Terry .. personality types do see “conflict” differently. All the more reason for the leader to play an active role in building a culture of openness, understanding, and productive communication.
Many thanks for this addition. Always grateful for contributions that expand the discussion.
Warmest regards,
Kate
This is an excellent article. A must read for anyone in a Leadership Position or Cross Functional Team.