Managing Leadership^®

As we saw yesterday, the great early 20th century management thinker Mary Parker Follett was a pioneer in the innovative and constructive use of conflict in organizations. She believed they should be resolved by neither domination nor compromise, but rather by integration. However, she was fully aware of the potential obstacles to its use.

A principal one is the presence in a situation of a strong individual leader. Follett saw that “the undue influence of leaders,” is “one of the chief obstacles to integration.” A self-aggrandizing leader may find it preferable, in order to reinforce or strengthen his or her partisan power base, to attempt to obtain an all-out win through domination, even when a clearly preferable, from an organizational viewpoint, integrative solution is available.

The legalistic and adversarial approach to conflict that so often results in what might be called competitive compromise, sometimes as overt as strikes and lockouts, is an all too obvious example of this. Leaders on one or both sides may pursue such approaches to gain limited tactical gains for themselves or their sides, or to better position themselves for the next conflict.

The benefit of using an integrative approach, when feasible, in dealing with conflict is obvious. Domination suppresses conflict, and compromise temporarily removes it. Integration, however, uses conflict to provide the traction that enables organizations to move beyond the conflict to a greater understanding of the organization’s nature and needs, and an optimal means of realizing them.

As we have seen, however, Follett knew that there are occasions when such a solution is not practical (because of, for example, the “undue influence of leaders”), or not feasible. But she also knew that it might not even be optimal. It might simply produce an additional way to perceive and deal with the conflict. Nevertheless, even that has value (if only in strengthening interparty relationships and interactions), and ought not to be missed merely because we are predisposed or driven to adversarial solutions.

It’s worth emphasizing again that Follett promoted integration as a means of dealing with, or (better) of using, a conflict – not of avoiding it. Conflict, properly perceived and exploited, is a potentially positive contributor to the vitality and progress of the organization. What’s more, it isn’t accomplished by yielding one’s interests to those of others – that’s just compromise.

The proper pursuit of integration of differences in order to constructively resolve conflict, according to Follett, “needs just as great a respect for your own view as for that of others, and a firm upholding of it until you are convinced. Mushy people are no more good at this than stubborn people.”

Undoubtedly many of you have heard of this approach as it is applied to negotiations. That is an excellent use, of course. But have you ever thought of it, as Follett did, as an every day organizational asset, with operational and design implications?

Follett even evaluated organizations on the quality of the conflicts they generated, and the constructive use they made of them. How does yours measure up?

—

This post is a part of a series. You can learn about and link to the other articles here: Conflict

—

Today’s tip: Speaking of leaders and dealing with conflict, please see this WSJ piece about Carl Icahn and Yahoo.

—

Did you know you can click on the green “Share This” icon below and uplink this post to any of the major social content sites, or email it to your friends and colleagues - give it a try right now!

And, while you’re at it, don’t forget to subscribe, and encourage your friends and colleagues to do so, as well!

—

Technorati Tags: conflict, domination, compromise, integration, leader, influence, power, strike, lockout, organization, negotiation, WSJ, Carl Icahn, Yahoo, Mary Parker Follett