Before we blame conflict on others, we must look at ourselves to see if we have what it takes to address conflict. Conflict is not for the faint of heart. Some of the attributes of good conflict handler include:
*Courage – Conflict always involves potential misinterpretation and hurt feelings. It takes courage to walk calmly and deliberately through the ambiguity and try to resolve it
Anger. Battle. Hurt Feelings. Innovation. Winning. Losing. Fear. These are the words people think of when we say “Conflict”.
Most of the words are negative – they convey conflict as a difficult, dangerous process. Many will go well out of their way to avoid emotional conflict situations, especially at work. There is a lot at stake. Careers. Money. Power. Opportunity. – It’s personal, it’s emotional and it often times means opening oneself and becoming vulnerable.
In 2015, Under Armour, which started in a basement in 1996, became the second largest sportswear brand in the United States, trailing only Nike. Founder and CEO Kevin Plank really does see his company as a team, always referring to “teammates,” and never “employees.” In the mid-1990s he was a walk-on who became a special teams football captain at the University of Maryland and who, during a heatwave, became profoundly disillusioned with the sweaty cotton undershirt he had to wear.
Swing is a term from crew boat racing and means a team of talented people working in near perfect synchronization.
The quality of an organization’s team – specifically, how it is galvanized and unified to achieve a mission – has a major impact on the success of the organization. Great teams – teams with swing – are identifiable by their forward progress. They continuously raise the bar, move forward, innovate on the run, achieve their goals, set new objectives, and exceed benchmarks and expectations… Read the full article >
For a person to successfully take on a management or leadership role, certain skills and accomplishments must be evident. But to move on to a C-level executive position, “ordinary” leadership qualities – valuable as they are – are no longer sufficient.
The highest leadership levels require more than ordinary leadership skills.
Being, for example, head of the engineering department requires a different set of skills and experiences than does being the Chief Technology Officer. To make it to the executive suite, a person must go above and beyond demonstrating leadership. How… Read the full article >
