How a leader can turn differences into opportunities for growth and collaboration

In the company, this means having shared habits, languages and practices that make it possible to deal with disagreements without feeling attacked. Prevention is part of management and, in fact, organisational psychology defines this skill as 'managing the antecedents to conflict'. This competence involves the ability to be aware of what is going on, to be able to read the context including one's own and others' emotional dynamics because, often, people take refuge in silence rather than face the situation, or they explode into outright aggression, exacerbating those very polarisations that are at the root of conflict.

In leadership, this translates into the ability to get to know one's people with their peculiarities and also the patience to understand what people think and feel during conflict. We must, however, be aware that time and patience are things we must dedicate and give: the most valuable contribution of a conflict intelligent leader. To quote Marinella Sclavi, among her enlightening seven rules of the art of listening, the third one says "if you want to understand what another person is saying, you have to assume that he is right and ask him to help you understand how and why"; it is not important, therefore, to be right, but to understand and recognise the opportunities for growth and development provided by confrontation.

All too often the equation is considered valid: conflict = chaos. This may be true at first, but by managing to navigate the conflict and giving oneself parameters for doing so, it is instead possible to create a confrontation that enhances people's peculiarities, diversity of thought and consolidates cognitive redundancy.

Conflict arises from rigid positions, from questions of principle, from points of view, often children of our history and experience from which we find it difficult to detach ourselves. For those in leadership roles, it is not easy to manage adaptability without it being seen as a weakness, as an inability to make a decision or as an absence of responsibility. What if we change our perspective? What if we started to see adaptability as a deep listening skill? What if we considered the art of patience as a strategic management resource, in total contrast to the speed of 'click-driven culture'?

Conflict is never isolated: it is a symptom of something bigger.

From our perspective, reading the context is one of the key competences for managing complex situations. And what is more complex than a conflict in all its facets? What is more complex than a whirlwind of emotions that come into play when the conflict spreads to a wider audience?

It is necessary to take into account the current context, having in mind what today's actions and decisions can generate tomorrow. This requires a systemic vision and the ability to work in a collaborative key, not just working to 'put out fires' in the here and now. This is the most transformative part of the work, but certainly also the one that requires the most perseverance. In this way, however, it is possible to build lasting leadership that is representative of an evolving culture, enabling the leader to step out of the role of punitive 'parent' or problem-solver.

Especially in professional contexts, the adjective opportunistic is wisely avoided because it is considered too individualistic and uncooperative. But if we try to grasp the non-selfish meaning of the word, anchoring it, instead, to the possibility of seizing an opportunity, we can see that there is much more advantage in building a collaborative situation rather than a conflictual one. Not every situation is always solvable, certainly not every point of view can change or be integrated, but learning to recognise the equal utility of different perspectives is one of the first steps to better business results.

In addition to these insights, we also consider it essential to address another aspect inherent to conflict management, perhaps the most present, pervasive and controversial one, namely the emotional universe that characterises and permeates conflict moments. We will call it HANDLE YOUR INNER STORM and will deal with it in a later dedicated article.

In conclusion, in a world so divided down the middle, we can no longer settle for leadership, but in general for relationships based on avoidance on the one hand and aggression on the other. Conflict intelligence is an advanced form of applied emotional intelligence: it requires self-awareness, lucidity in reading the context and courage in entering the conflict without suffering or fuelling it. Leadership that has a direct impact on corporate culture, able to navigate through conflict without destroying ties but strengthening them, generating more resilient, collaborative and innovative work environments where people want to stay.

We are used to calling the opposite of conflict, peace, but peace is often a distant and, with a hint of realism, we can say utopian when understood as the absence of turbulence and disagreements. This is why in professional contexts, from our point of view, it is useful to consider collaboration as the opposite of conflict, because only when a space is created in which differences can coexist and work together, can destructive dynamics really be overcome. Conflict does not disappear, but with the right skills it turns into dialogue. But we will talk about this in the next article.

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