Empathy, curiosity and time: how bosses can deal better with conflict

Conflict happens in every business and organization, and the keys to dealing with, and learning from it, are empathy and curiosity, says conflict expert Jodi Enns.

A recent graduate of Royal Roads University’s Master of Arts in Conflict Analysis and Management program, Enns wrote her thesis on leadership decision-making when dealing with complaints of emotional harm. Her research specifically looks at the intersection of leadership, faith and conflict.

Behaviours including manipulation, coercion, arbitrary decision making, erratic responses — from angry outbursts to verbal attacks — gaslighting and sarcasm can, over a period of time and cumulatively, cause emotional harm, says Enns, who teaches conflict management at Columbia Bible College in Abbotsford, B.C.

While no organization will ever be able to eliminate all such behaviours, how people react when presented with the problems caused by emotional conflicts is critical and the focus of her research.

One key challenge leaders face, she says, is that leaders can be hard-wired to act and want concrete steps or techniques to follow to solve the problem of one employee behaving in a way that hurts another. But as each context is unique, it’s not that simple.

“A lot of leaders aren’t equipped specifically for this,” she says. “There’s not a one-two-three-step process.”

As well, Enns notes that many leaders want to take on the role of judge, quickly ascertaining whether harm took place before passing judgment and moving on. “But that stops the process right at the beginning,” she says.

“Leaders need to start by engaging with a method of discovery — What’s taking place? How is this individual understanding the issue? How am I understanding the issue? — to begin a process of curious inquiry and really starting to see the complexity and all of the elements involved, as opposed to making quick fixes.”

Another obstacle for many leaders, she says, is that they instinctively see any concerns raised or complaints made as threats — to their time and other duties, to the organization, to others in the organization whom they may consider not just employees but friends.

“We’re our worst thinkers when we’re under threat,” Enns says. “It’s empathy that diffuses the sense of threat and helps us to navigate a way forward. Empathy and curiosity reduce the physiological responses to threat and allow us to actually wonder about the other person as opposed to just thinking about ‘How does this impact me?’”

In both faith-based and secular organizations, leaders can benefit from a process based on empathy and curiosity — and learning when dealing with conflicts, says Enns.

All these issues are challenging to address, and can be particularly fraught in faith-based organizations such as churches, Enns says.

“Church communities are meant to be communities of care and safety and compassion, and if there’s poor decision making in relation to a complaint, they’re actually inciting and perpetuating harm,” she explains. “There’s a disconnect here, there’s a gap in the performance of churches in this way when leaders don’t make wise decisions.”

The importance and nature of relationship in faith organizations complicates matters. A leader may be an individual’s employer but, also, their pastor and in charge of their spiritual care.

Regardless of whether it occurs in a secular or faith-based setting, Enns says,  while the presence of conflict is often seen as a negative it’s also “an opportunity for change from engaging with this conflict well.”

Indeed, it was through her own experiences that she saw opportunities for transformation after conflict. 

“Conflict seemed like an untapped resource in order to evolve, in order to grow, in order to understand one another.”

Interested in learning more about our Master of Arts in Conflict Analysis and Management program? Visit the program page or request more information.