How comfortable are you with having open, direct conflict with another leader? - SmartBrief

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How comfortable are you with having open, direct conflict with another leader?

1 min read

Leadership

SmartPulse — our weekly nonscientific reader poll in SmartBrief on Leadership — tracks feedback from more than 190,000 business leaders. We run the poll question each week in our e-newsletter.

Last week, we asked: How comfortable are you with having open, direct conflict with another leader?

  • I enjoy it — conflict leads to new ideas: 14.97%
  • It’s fine — conflict is part of my job: 51.38%
  • It’s uncomfortable — I avoid conflict if I can: 31.69%
  • I hate it — I’ll avoid conflict at all costs: 1.95%

Throw down the gloves. It seems like most of you are more than willing to throw down and go toe-to-toe with your colleagues in open conflict and disagreement. Just be aware that one-third of folks out there find such overt conflict threatening and uncomfortable. Be sure the person you’re having the argument with is willing to partake in the verbal fisticuffs. If they’re not, you’ll come across as a not-so-nice person and it could hurt your credibility as a leader in the long run.

Mike Figliuolo is managing director of thoughtLEADERS and author of “One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful, Personal Leadership.”