Conflict management is one of the most critical leadership skills today, yet many leaders are struggling to get it right. Companies are implementing return-to-office mandates; shifting stances on diversity, equity, and inclusion; and dealing with climate change and an uncertain economy. All of these factors put pressure on businesses and the people who work for them. Over 80% of workers report escalated tensions in the workplace, and 90% of workers say they have witnessed political clashes between coworkers.
Employees are feeling uncomfortable because they are unsure how they fit into company goals, or don’t feel clear about where the company is headed. This tension leads to conflict, and it’s up to the leaders to manage the situation.
When we teach conflict management, there are several classic models and approaches. Some call for weighing goal achievement versus relationship orientation, while others look to balance assertion versus cooperation. In all scenarios, there is an underlying assumption: Leaders foster the climate that determines whether employees will engage in collegial discourse. In other words, people who disagree should be comfortable advocating for their position while listening to others’ points of view. While this notion works well in theory, the practical manager knows this is not always the case.
In recent years, hybrid work has made free-flowing communication opportunities and seeing things eye-to-eye more challenging, literally. While it’s widely recommended that you should not accept what you read, having a conversation to ask for more clarity is not always natural (or even possible) in a hybrid setting.
So, what do you do when mixed-work modality team members are in conflict with one another, with the company, or even with you? As the leader, your job is to manage the situation. The challenge is determining how to approach conflict in a way that is both constructive and comfortable.
The Remote Work Factor
There are many efficiencies afforded by flexible work arrangements, but a side effect of remote (and sometimes asynchronous) work is that conversations between coworkers are often limited to scheduled check-ins and meetings. Consequently, coworker interactions are relatively two-dimensional. Employees make inferences and judgments from emailed statements or Slack DMs that rarely, if ever, tell the full story of one’s perspective and context.
Compounding this issue is the fact that today’s multigenerational workforce has significantly different comfort levels using different modalities for collaboration. Gen Z and millennial employees have learned communication norms that entail a heavy reliance on direct messaging and video calls versus talking things through with one another. In fact, 46% of workers report they have engaged in full arguments over chat-based applications. Meanwhile, members of all generations have varying preferences for direct communication—whether in person, via phone, or video.
The shift toward remote and hybrid work has complicated communication particularly as it pertains to giving feedback. In traditional office settings, mentorship and sharing feedback often occur naturally through hallway conversations, post-meeting discussions, or informal manager check-ins. One of the drawbacks of remote work can be the elimination of these spontaneous opportunities.
Without casual in-person interactions, employees must deliberately schedule feedback conversations, which can make the process feel more formal and high-stakes than a quick chat in the office. As a consequence, performance itself can become a source of conflict since remote employees are 32% less likely to receive real-time feedback, including what has been working well, and what needs to change.
Navigating the Next Era of Workplace Conflict
When teams realize that what they are doing is not working, conflicts will happen. Due to not having the opportunity to bring issues up until they become undeniable, conflicts may have festered and therefore may be emotionally charged. We recommend three considerations for those ready to rise to the challenge of hybrid or remote conflict management.
1. Be honest about what you’re seeing—and why it’s a problem
A first crucial element to managing conflict is that leaders call out what they are seeing and then discuss observations with their team. For example, although sentiments are mixed when it comes to how politics should be brought into or left out of the workplace, there is no denying that stakeholders and stockholders alike have been impacted by various international events and executive orders. From the impact tariffs may have on a company’s ability to import materials, to the impact layoffs may have on staffing, what needs to be considered in our work today is different than it was a few weeks ago.
Leaders can’t ignore what is going on around them. One of the tenets of psychologist and author Daniel Goleman’s model of emotionally intelligent leadership posits that a leader’s primary responsibility is to be in sync with their followers. In order to be able to react in a way that resonates with one’s team, leaders should know whether something may cause apprehension, excitement, or concern among their reports. In fact, if managers are oblivious to or ignore any elements of the world that concern their employees, they will cause further frustration or be dismissed themselves.
One option is for leaders to start their weekly check-ins with a current events update. Share top headlines and explain how news may impact the organization in the coming week or months. If a company does change its policies due to shifts in federal or state sentiments, acknowledge these and explain how this shift will affect your team members directly or indirectly.
If you don’t know how to get discussions going, it’s likely that your company’s communication department has created talking points for managers to use. In smaller companies, ask the human resources department for some guidelines on how to explain changes to employees. You should not feel alone in what you say, but you should take responsibility for bringing changes up.
2. Get to know your team
If a leader doesn’t know what the team cares about in the first place, it will be impossible to connect their perceptions to conflicts that may erupt. Meanwhile, those employees who have not learned how to self-advocate may struggle finding the right time and place to raise their concerns (and voices) constructively. Leaders who bridge these two scenarios can mitigate conflicts or manage them when they arise.
As mentioned earlier, resonant leaders are those in sync with their followers emotionally. They understand that an employee who is seeking international relocation may see global affairs differently than one who has a domestic promotion agenda. If your company conducts business with countries involved in tariff discussions, some company leaders may worry about how financial reporting will be adversely impacted. Knowing what is important to your team enables you to proactively manage topics that may become conflicts.
Because of this, it’s important that leaders take the time to listen to their employees when they share what matters to them. Whether there is data from a formal performance review and goal-setting session, or you’ve gone to lunch with a member of your team, take inventory of what you know about each individual and what is important to them.
If you are not already in the habit of doing so, use your one-on-one meetings as opportunities to bring up what you know, and ask your team members to share how they are feeling about a related element of their job or development plan they had established.
If employees don’t share topics of frustration or worry, ask open-ended questions that provide the opportunity to express their concerns or identify paths they wish to explore. And, if you’re not having in-person or virtual on-on-ones, now is a very good time to start.
3. Learn to communicate proactively and address conflict remotely
If you were walking down a hallway and heard someone complaining, you’d know they are unhappy. But if your interactions with your team members are limited to when they choose to turn their webcams and microphones on, you will not have the same windows of insight. Identifying potential conflicts and managing ones that have already come into focus require an adjustment of management techniques.
Similar to knowing and understanding what team members may value, it’s incumbent upon a manager to know some of their direct reports’ attitudinal tells. If an employee shakes their head a little more than usual in agreement or asks the same question more than once and does not seem to apply what they learn, these may be signs that remote workers are struggling to stay focused or engaged.
It has been said many times before, but when working with a remote workforce, you cannot overcommunicate. Leaders need to establish a cadence of regular meetings and also be sure to casually check in with informal conversations and temperature checks. Information that is verbally shared in a meeting should also be documented and distributed via written communiqués to avoid miscommunication or misunderstanding, which can also lead to conflict.
When remote employees are simply not performing according to expectations, leaders need to manage their performance in the same way they would for in-person employees. Letting issues go or looking the other way is not an option.
On the flipside, it’s important to understand that sometimes what you—the leader—are doing is the cause of the conflict. One-third of employees have indicated that their bosses are too aggressive in text messages. Therefore, to avoid greater conflicts, leaders must address the situation directly and manage just as they would if the employee worked in the office.
To preempt any issues, leaders must become comfortable saying, “Hey, can you stay on the line for a minute?” Use this time after the regular meeting to acknowledge what you are seeing and ask for feedback on the initiative, the players, or the process being employed to address the work.
If the opportunity to talk right after another meeting is missed, it’s okay to email or send a Slack message to an employee to ask: “Do you have time later to hop on a quick Zoom? I want to go over X topic.” It’s important to be specific about the agenda so that there isn’t cause for alarm as to the subject of the conversation. That said, we also suggest doing this when you are able to jump on a call in the not-too-distant future, as requesting a meeting may still induce anxiety.
Bring People Together to Manage Conflict
When workers are not in the same physical space, facilitating conflict management is not easy. While it’s easy enough to ignore what may be distressing your team or assume that everyone interprets things the same way, managers should openly address differences, ask questions, and demonstrate flexibility when conflict arises.
By deliberately managing communication in a way that normalizes healthy conflict, leaders create an environment where everyone feels heard and understood.