When members of your team have conflict with each other, how do you handle it?

Our reader poll today asks: When members of your team have conflict with each other, how do you handle it?

• I ignore it and hope they figure it out 6.40%
• I tell them to go resolve it 14.16%
• I offer to mediate if they’d like me to 49.32%
• I jump in and actively mediate 27.39%
• I reassign their work so they don’t have to interact 2.73%

Mediating conflict. Most of you (80%) either offer to mediate conflict between team members if they want you to (49%) while another 27% of you jump in to mediate without asking. If you’re one of those who jumps in, recognize you’re depriving them of a skill-building opportunity. The better they learn to mediate conflict on their own, the less of it you’ll deal with and the less of it you’ll have. Try taking a step back and pause before jumping in. Perhaps offer “it seems like there’s some conflict between you two. If you’d like my help in resolving it, let me know and I’m happy to engage.” Leave it up to them to see if they can resolve it on their own or if they want assistance. While having conflict on a team isn’t fun, having a team that can’t resolve it on their own is an even bigger headache.

– Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC

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These results were originally a SmartPulse poll in SmartBrief on Leadership which tracks feedback from more than 240,000 business leaders. Get smarter on leadership and sign up for the SmartBrief on Leadership e-newsletter.