Raw Conflict
Conflict is a state of psychological and emotional dissonance that occurs when we perceive we may be at risk of loss, or vulnerable to another’s competing needs or desires. Leading effectively through a conflict is one of the most challenging experiences we have as leaders.
Most of us avoid raw conflict because we fear the pain and discomfort it arouses. But avoidance can cause the conflict to escalate into more destructive forms of energy and behaviour. Leaders need to be willing to consciously navigate a path to genuine resolution.
Nic Askew’s film about the conflict in the Klamath Basin, expresses some painful but crucial learning. It explores how we can lead and navigate our selves and others, through even the most entrenched conflict. Jeff Mitchell, a Klamath tribal leader, explains how the leadership challenge is “to find a way to understand each other, and create relationships based on truth and reality, rather than disconnected judgement.”
Our ability to be conscious of our own perceptions, needs, fears and judgements is only half the understanding required. We then need to be willing to consciously step into the other person’s world, and deeply experience and understand their fears, needs, perceptions and judgements. Perhaps the ultimate art of conscious leadership is this ability to experience the intimacy of another’s actual lived experience.
“Do not judge your neighbour until you have walked two moons in his moccasins.” American Indian Proverb
There are many ways to develop our conscious leadership skills, and conflict provides us with one of the best contexts for personal insight. In such situations we can become aware of our unconscious bias and our distorted judgements that feel ‘right’, and seduce us into ‘righteous’ thinking and behaviour. To sincerely challenge ourselves this way is uncomfortable, but without it, our decisions and actions will be divisive.
Courage
It takes courage to step outside of our own experience and cleanly embrace the world of someone in conflict with us. Without this ability we are doomed to fight our cause until one party either ‘gives in’ or ‘wins’. This is not sustainable success. There is always a ‘loser’ when only one party ‘wins’. And the consequences of that loss will emerge in some form, either soon, or even generations later. Indeed we may be living with some of these past ‘losses’ emerging now in current world conflicts.
How can we access our best sources of courage and compassion to lead our businesses and our world differently? What would it take to bring our thinking fully into a longer term, systemic understanding of our decisions and actions? How can we face and challenge our current limitations as leaders, and envision a world of truly cooperative and peaceful co-existence?
Ultimately, conscious leadership makes no distinction between ‘self’ and ‘other’. Conscious leaders appreciate the interconnectedness of everything.
Where in your life and work might you be experiencing some conflict now? How could this reveal a deeper understanding of your own mindset? And how could those insights feed your conscious leadership development?