Module 9

Managing as a Leader—Conflict
Conflict is an inevitable part of leadership. The goal isn’t to avoid conflict but to manage it effectively. Avoiding
conflict can lead to groupthink, stifle innovation, and push tough decision making aside. Effective leaders
create environments where people feel safe to express differing ideas, experiment, and even fail—without fear
of personal attack or serious repercussions. In this module, we will explore how to manage conflict to drive
positive change, examine different approaches to conflict resolution, and learn to understand the central role
communication plays in both conflict and its outcomes.

Learning Objectives
• Describe potential strategies to deal with content conflict and relational conflict.
• Prepare a plan to enhance your communication style.

Required Readings
• Peter G. Northouse, Introduction to Leadership, chapter 10 (pp. 261–282).
• Dale Carnegie, “Eight Tips for Effective Communication in the Workplace,” January 26, 2024,
[Link]
• Katherine Hampsten, “How Miscommunication Happens (and How to Avoid It),” TED Talks, February
2016,
[Link]
d_it.

Optional Readings
• Deb Nielsen, Emily Ballantyne, Faatimah Murad, and Melissa Fournier, “What is Effective
Communication,” in Getting Ready for Work-Integrated Learning (BC Campus, Creative Commons
Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 International License, 2022),
[Link]
communication/#:~:text=Effective%20communication%20is%20a%20communication%20between%20t
wo%20or,a%20clear%20and%20concise%20format.%20%28Business%20Jargons%2C%202021%29..
• Niro Sivanathan, “The Counterintuitive Way to Be More Persuasive,” TED Talks, May 2019.
[Link]
• Fadi Smiley, “Leadership Guide to Conflict and Conflict Management,” in Leadership in Healthcare and
Public Health (Ohio State Pressbooks, Creative commons Attribution 4.0 International License, 2018),
[Link]
management/.
• Dina Denham Smith, “When Your Feelings Conflict with Your Leadership Role,” Harvard Business
Review, January 27, 2023, pp. 1–5, [Link]
leadership-role.

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2 Module 7 Managing as a Leader—Conflict

Conflict and Communication

“For leaders and followers alike, interpersonal conflict is inevitable.” 1 Northouse offers a valuable list of issues
that lead to conflict, emphasizing that communication is both the largest source of and the best solution to
conflict. The optional Smiley reading overlaps with Northouse’s content (with Smiley even quoting him), but
it also includes additional conflict management tips. You may choose to skim it for a high-level comparison of
approaches. Hampsten’s TED-Ed video provides a helpful summary of how miscommunication occurs, along
with practical strategies to prevent it, including this insight:

Be aware of your personal perceptual filters. Elements of your experience, including your
culture, community, and family, influence how you see the world. Say, “This is how I see the
problem, but how do you see it?” Don’t assume that your perception is the objective truth. 2

Dale Carnegie
Dale Carnegie (1888–1955) was an American writer, speaker, and developer of popular professional
improvement courses. His landmark book How to Win Friends and Influence People, published in 1936,
became a bestseller and remains influential to this day. Many leadership development programs, sales
training, and customer service protocols incorporate Carnegie’s self-improvement techniques. The Dale
Carnegie organization is a well-recognized source for communication, and this reading provides eight tips
for effective communication:
1. Use active listening
2. Choose the right timing and medium (channel)
3. Ask questions
4. Be mindful of differences
5. Set clear expectations
6. Address conflict
7. Use technology wisely
8. Learn and practice

We are all likely familiar with these tips, but they serve as helpful reminders to refresh our communication
skills and reflect on areas for improvement.

Concise Communication
Can you convey your message concisely and briefly? In his TED Talk, Niro Sivanathan, an organizational
psychologist, explains that weak arguments will dilute the value of a strong argument. If we want our
communication to be effective and persuasive, we need to understand how people will receive the
information. For example, mentioning unrelated symptoms to a doctor can diminish the importance of the
real symptoms you’re describing. Practising presentations and focusing on key points helps us stay on message
and ensure that others understand our argument or position. In communication, quality trumps quantity.

1 Peter G. Northouse, Introduction to Leadership: Concepts and Practice, 6th ed. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2025), p.
281.
2 Katherine Hampsten, “How Miscommunication Happens (and How to Avoid It),” TED Talks, February 2016,

[Link]
(accessed November 5, 2024).

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3 Module 7 Managing as a Leader—Conflict

Managing Emotions
In the Harvard Business Review reading by Smith, the author examines the challenges leaders face regarding
emotions in the workplace. When leaders experience a conflict between their feelings and the emotions they
are expected to display, they often have to ask themselves these questions: How much emotion is OK to
express? How authentic can I be at work? Do I need to put on a “game face”? These questions are relevant not
only for leaders but also for their followers. “Leaders risk losing credibility and effectiveness if they disclose
everything they think and feel — a reality that is especially true for women and people of color. But suppressing
your emotions is also costly...The effort expended can also reduce self-control, increasing the chance that
leaders lash out at work. In turn, this impacts engagement levels, turnover, and the financial performance of
an organization.” 3 The article explains how leaders can effectively use and embrace emotions in the following
four ways:

1. Reappraise the situation: Focus on finding legitimate reasons to express emotions. Practice empathy so
that when faced with a situation that triggers negative emotions, you can place yourself in the other’s
situation and display compassion.
2. Focus on what matters: Understanding who benefits from what you do is energizing. Step back and
reflect on why your work matters.
3. Do an emotional audit: Building an understanding of your feelings contributes to your emotional
intelligence and strengthens your ability to be a good leader.
4. Take time to reconnect and replenish: Find ways to reduce stress, including practicing self-compassion.

Recognizing Impediments to Open Communication

In his book Who’s in the Room, Bob Frisch talks about the importance of the environment in encouraging
communication and managing conflict. It is important to recognize impediments to open communication in
order to promote better interactions between people. For example, bringing people together may present the
following challenges:

• Conflicts between what the leader expects and people’s expertise.

• Everyone brings functional expertise to the table, but they also know that their leaders, and perhaps
other members of the team, have an organization-wide and holistic perspective. This may encourage or
hamper communication and create conflict if members believe that they are not being heard or that the
organization is proceeding in the wrong direction.
• Conflicts of accountability.
• Everyone comes to the table representing their own unit, it is a legislature. The leader may expect people
to act as a team, but everyone is there to defend the interest of their department.
• Conflicts of power.
• Everyone is told they have a voice, but some units or departments have more clout.
• Conflicts of consensus.
• Everyone leaves the meeting feeling they have achieved something and made a choice, but then other
alternatives or situational factors are presented after the fact and adopted without consensus. 4

These situations require careful management. For instance, asking individuals to leave their functional “hat at
the door” to improve teamwork or encourage holistic thinking can unintentionally undermine the perceived

3 Dina Denham Smith, “When Your Feelings Conflict with Your Leadership Role,” Harvard Business Review,
January 27, 2023, pp. 1–5, [Link]
(accessed November 5, 2024).
4 Bob Frisch, Who’s in the Room? How Great Leaders Structure and Manage the Teams Around Them (New York:

Wiley & Sons, 2012), pp. 41–57.

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4 Module 7 Managing as a Leader—Conflict

value of their technical expertise. Not everyone will naturally adopt a holistic perspective. Frisch suggests that
leaders can harness people’s abilities more effectively by allowing them to share their functional insights in
ways that enhance collective efforts. He encourages leaders to shed hierarchical habits and embrace diverse
skills and knowledge to foster bottom-up leadership—an approach that also promotes innovation and well-
being within organizations. While greater engagement may lead to more disagreement, conflict can be
beneficial if managed well. Teams operating in this environment would benefit from learning and applying
positive conflict resolution strategies.

Self-Assessment
• Application 10.3: Conflict Style Questionnaire on pp. 288–290 of Northouse

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