In an ideal workplace, teams would work together in harmony, celebrate each other’s accomplishments and support each other, while spending quality time together. The reality is that 85 percent of employees across levels report conflicts at the workplace.
The Team leader plays a great role in controlling conflict, but needs to understand that not all conflict is bad. Conflict fuels change, and is necessary for emotional, intellectual and moral growth of the team members.

An Ideal Workplace And The Need For Conflict

Some team members start to become envious if others get promoted instead of them. This can breed toxicity in the workplace.A leader can minimize damage by:<ol><li>Find out other growth opportunities for the disheartened employees like making them in charge of new projects, committees and special events.</li><li>Instead of letting the other employees find out through company-wide emails, tell them yourself.</li><li>Keep a close eye on team interactions and address any problems that arise.</li></ol>

Team Promotions

According to a survey, all employees have been annoyed by some coworker/team member. People with different personalities often gravitate towards hating others who are not their type or annoy them for reasons personal to them.As a leader, you need to:<ol><li>Talk to each team member and find common ground, leading to a possible solution.</li><li>Lead by example and show your employees that you practice what you preach.</li><li>Set boundaries and demonstrate what kind of conduct is not acceptable.</li></ol>

Team Members Hate Each Other

Sometimes there are workload issues, bottlenecks and mismanagement of information, leading to missed deadlines and lost productivity. The leader can:<ol><li>Seek regular feedback, making each meeting a productive time to uncover bottlenecks and roadblocks.</li><li>Use the right kind of tools, suggested by employees themselves, to work efficiently.</li><li>Use the ‘five whys’ technique where one moves towards first principles, addressing the real problem. Ask ‘why’ five consecutive times to get to the root cause of the problem.</li></ol>

An Unworkable Process

Team members have all kinds of working styles, from the quiet introverted ones to the aggressive, loud ones. Keeping the various types of people happily working together is a challenge for any manager.A Leader can facilitate working together by:<ol><li>Creating personalised instruction manuals about work preferences, feedback preferences, availability hours and other details of the entire team.</li><li>Finding out the strengths of the employee and providing them engaging work that lets them make use of their skills.</li></ol>

Different Working Styles

Not sure how to smooth rocky team waters in a way that’s productive and positive? Let’s take a look at some of the most common team conflicts, along with advice for addressing each one. 

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Remote Work

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Corporate Culture

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Teamwork

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Leadership & Management

4 Common Workplace Conflicts (And How To Deal)

Gaslighting is a covert type of behavior that is adept at undermining other people's self-esteem, confidence, and sense of reality. 
Its toxicity flies under the radar due to its being subtle and sneaky in nature.

Gaslighting

<ul>
<li>Do whatever you can in order to create distance between your mental well-being and your boss's abusive behavior.</li>
<li>If possible you can try to externalize their behavior instead of ruminating on them. The way people treat you is a statement of who they are as a person, not a statement about you.</li>
<li>Focus on reaffirming your value and engage in many life-affirming activities. Remind yourself of who you are and what your values are.</li>
</ul>

Protect Your Mental Health

It's critical to have a strong support system by your side whenever we're dealing with emotionally challenging situations.
surround yourself with friends and people who support you and encourage you, these can be family, friends, work colleagues, or even therapists.

Create A Strong Network System

Make sure that you're actually being gaslit by your boss and they're not just being jerks. Many gaslighters lie and deny things that they said - even in writing. 
They project their own faults and flaws onto other people and often would insinuate that you are the incompetent one.

Interrogating Your Experience

There are also other ways to escape your toxic boss without having to leave your company.
Try to look into other positions in the company that are within your interests, meet with colleagues and managers in other departments, and think about where your skills might translate.

Explore Opportunities Within Your Organization

Before confronting or escalating this issue with management, do your homework first. Have a clear game plan for what you want to achieve from that conversation.
<ol>
<li>Ask trusted colleagues if they have any information or experience that would be helpful;</li>
<li>Check out sites where employees leave reviews of their employers.</li>
</ol>
Be specific with the resources and support you need in order to execute your job and explain to your boss how this will benefit them and the organization.

Confronting or Escalating With Extreme Caution

As much as possible it's best if you lessen your interaction with your gaslighting boss but during conversations try to have witnesses around and use emails or other written documentation to recap conversations and agreements.
Having a real-time record of your interactions will make it harder for your boss to question your sanity and backpedal on agreements. Moreover, seek out mentors and actively look to build networks and build relationships with different leaders.

Record and Minimize Your Interactions

The longer you stay, the longer it takes to recover.

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Career

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Personal Development

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Communication

Ask an Expert: What Should I Do If My Boss Is Gaslighting Me?

Be human and come across as vulnerable, to form lasting connections.
Being congenial and polite in a business conversation is great, but one has to sound authentic and not simply provide lip service just to be part of the team.

Being Human

Setting boundaries is important in the workplace, and you are not obligated to be generous, vulnerable and helpful towards everyone.
Also, you are not supposed to blurt out our life story to every coworker you run into.

Your True Self Isn’t For Everyone

One has to be deliberate if meaningful relationships are to be developed. Paying attention and listening well is the first step to responding well. Following up in a conversation is absolutely critical. Being an active listener makes us form connections faster as our responses have value and substance.
One can be helpful and generous, provided it energizes you, and not exhausts you.

Time And Intent

Being yourself is generally considered the best way to cultivate meaningful work relationships, career growth and eventual success. A strong social network is developed as a result of the work relationships that develop, resulting in better job satisfaction.
However, being totally unfiltered and trusting towards your coworkers can ruin your career in weeks, so there is a middle path that needs to be undertaken.

Your Authentic Self At The Workplace

Don’t hide who you are. Do set boundaries.

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Entrepreneurship

How Much of Your “Authentic Self” Should You Really Bring to Work?

Ask: What are our individual preferred working styles and strengths?
Not understanding the differences in style can cause irritation or conflict. Understanding each other's strengths can help determine the division of labour.

Individual working styles and strengths within a collaboration

Ask: What do we need from each other to do our best work?
It is important to discuss this question if you have never met before. Understanding how you can support each other to do your best work is only possible is you are clear about your needs. If you feel like you tolerate something from your colleague, it is often an unspoken request you have yet to make.

Support and collaboration

Ask: Who will do what, and by when?
Knowing who is responsible for what will help balance the workload, avoid duplicate work, and preempt territorial behaviour. Establishing accountability for progress on various deliverables can create greater clarity and increase the likelihood that goals will be met.

Collaboration: Clarify responsibilities up-front

Ask: When and how will we give each other feedback on our working relationship?
Establishing a process for feedback can build the relationship.

Giving feedback in a collaboration

Ask: What are our goals and process for this project?
Articulate each person's definition of success and vision of the path ahead. The goal is to ensure that both move in the same direction and don't work at cross purposes.

Defining the objectives and the roadmap of a collaboration

Organizations today are increasingly collaborative across interdependent teams. But collaboration can have two sides: It can lead to improved outcomes and intrinsic motivation, or it can significantly slow down decision-making and result in ongoing engagement that takes up most employees' time.
First discussing specific questions with your new colleague will enable you to work together more effectively and ensure a positive working relationship.

Collaboration can be a double-edged sword

How to Collaborate, Build trust and other tips to create a smooth transition in your new endeavour

Joining A New Team

Five questions to ask when you’re working with someone for the first time.

Collaborating with Someone You Don’t Really Know

The lost art of listening actively and with patience is to be revived.
We all are already fighting with the voices in our heads and also to make ourselves heard, that we overlook the importance of listening carefully and attentively.

The Lost Art of Active Listening

Instead of boring, dull monologues, make your speech into a conversation, with greater interaction, questions and talking points that engage the listeners. 
Let people participate in what you are saying, and they will remember your words.

Make Your Speech A Conversation

Time is precious, so it pays to hook the audience with the main idea and give them a strong reason to continue listening. Your colleagues may be already overwhelmed with deadlines and demands made by others and will appreciate your clarity and brevity.
Delivering a new idea when everyone already has multiple deadlines to meet and zero bandwidth to process anything new will not be effective. Ensure that the listeners are not mentally occupied or feeling rushed about something else while you pitch your idea.

Speech Delivery: Getting To The Point

When we use words and phrases like: 
<ul>
<li>‘I Think..’ </li>
<li>‘This is just a suggestion/idea, but..’ </li>
<li>‘Like, you know..’... </li>
</ul>
... we end up downplaying our own ideas. We need to be more assertive and speak with conviction.

Speaking With Conviction

By speaking clearly and maintaining eye contact, we can use words to hypnotize the audience. 
Even our pauses in between our words can be used to gather our thoughts and make the listeners reflect on what you have just said.

Speaking With Intention

Your volume is not as important as you think and even speaking in a relatively quiet voice has a hypnotic effect on the listener. 
People also have to stop talking to be able to listen to your quiet voice, and it is a proven fact that a whisper gets more ears than a shout.

Speech Delivery: Don't Get Loud

Before pitching an idea, practice in front of a mirror or record your voice to help you iron out any problems beforehand.
Take the help of a colleague and anticipate what kind of reactions and questions the listeners may have.

Preparing For Your Speech

Be attentive of how you sit or stand, and avoid slouching, crossing your arms or looking here and there. 
Use hand gestures and project a confident, positive image. You can also try to mirror the body language of the person you are talking to, to build trust.

Body Language During A Speech

In the corporate world, employees need to communicate effectively for pitching ideas, and even to get one’s point across in meetings.
This is an art in which one has to be intentional and pay a good amount of attention to one’s communication. One cannot be a rambler or overly emotional in that kind of setting.

Getting Your Voice Heard

People can recognize confidence in the voice of others, as they can infer nervousness. One can practice breathing exercises and come into the right frame of mind, while making it quieter and more focused.
Believe in yourself and it will show in your speech.

4 Common Workplace Conflicts (And How To Deal)

Ask an Expert: What Should I Do If My Boss Is Gaslighting Me?

How Much of Your “Authentic Self” Should You Really Bring to Work?

It's time to
Read like a Pro.

Collaborating with Someone You Don’t Really Know

CURATED BY

4 Common Workplace Conflicts (And How To Deal)

Ask an Expert: What Should I Do If My Boss Is Gaslighting Me?

How Much of Your “Authentic Self” Should You Really Bring to Work?

It's time to Read like a Pro.

Collaborating with Someone You Don’t Really Know

CURATED BY

It's time to
Read like a Pro.