Strong leaders focus on the work that adds the most value for their team and company. Working at the top of your abilities is a superpower, delaying burnout and preserving the parts of the job you’re most likely to enjoy.

What’s the #1 barrier to consistently working in this optimum state? Your employees.

Leaders are regularly approached by employees who ask them for help with tasks that are relatively trivial. There are steps to address this, but a tougher challenge comes when your team approaches you on a trivial matter that has become non-trivial because it’s created drama and conflict. A common instance of this is often around vacations. Teams that restrict the number of employees that can be absent simultaneously or around holidays occasionally have squabbles that escalate into entrenched arguments over these topics. You’ll have multiple employees asserting that it’s “their turn” and that they’re being treated unfairly by the others.

Your job as the leader is to get a successful resolution without getting yourself involved in the argument. Many leaders allow themselves to be pulled into these conflicts, unintentionally choosing sides and deepening the drama by appearing to play favorites. Instead, you need to build tools that allow you to stay neutral while encouraging the conversation to reach a productive conclusion.

Is everyone on the same page?

Has the group sat down together to have an open discussion about this topic to find areas of overlap or compromise? You’ll be surprised how much “cold conflict” you’re asked to resolve, where the participants haven’t even bothered to get themselves into a room to openly discuss the issue. Leaders will find that many situations can be easily resolved when all parties are willing to share where they’re coming from, their concerns, and what they really want. This allows everyone to have full context and to start brainstorming solutions, which can only happen with a healthy group discussion.

Ideally, this discussion should happen without you, because strong leaders will always get pulled into these discussions as participants, when they should be neutral observers. Be purposeful about the rooms you allow yourself to be in when these discussions occur.

Consider a neutral mediator

Unfortunately, sometimes your team still won’t be able to find a compromise. For the truly difficult dialogues, bring in a respected leader from elsewhere in the organization to help mediate. “Can’t I just mediate it myself?” Sure, but you’re more likely to be accused of playing favorites. Is it realistic to expect a peer leader to help you resolve these issues? Yes. Most of your peers will be flattered you asked and value their input.

Ask the employees if they’ll agree to let a neutral outside party arbitrate the discussion. Let them know it’ll be someone who’s unbiased and who can help them reach a decision. If they push back, then go back to option 1: “you all need to resolve this yourselves then”. Give them a time constraint, and if they haven’t decided by that time, bring in the arbitrator to sit in with them and discuss.

Draw straws

As silly as it may seem, people are much more willing to accept a bad outcome if they feel it was fate rather than feeling like someone picked against them. Tripping accidentally and being tripped elicit two very different feelings. As a last fall back, inform the team that if they can’t resolve this conflict themselves and can’t come to terms with an arbitrator, they’re going to draw straws (or pick out of a hat, or use a random number generator, etc.).

All of these methods are less desirable than your team working out their own solution, and that’s the point. Your employees need to be able to resolve these things amongst themselves. Every alternative should feel less attractive to them.

Successful partnerships are built on the ability to find compromises. Marriage, starting a company, siblings, etc. By giving your team a series of undesirable options with which to choose from, you put healthy pressure on them to create their own resolution. Life won’t always give you a referee. They need to learn that.

“But Patrick, what if one of them has the obvious best solution?” Well, then you have a choice to make. You can weigh in and side with the person who you think has the clear answer. You have to decide if that choice is worth the risk of playing favorites. Another option would be to meet with this person independently and say: “Hey [employee], I personally think you have the best solution here, but you need to find a way to convince your peers. What are the barriers from their perspective?” You can then assist this employee in selling their solution.

These messy situations are reminders that leadership involves not letting perfect be the enemy of good. By helping your employees find compromise and a “good-enough” solution, you’ll be showing them that they can create their own acceptable outcomes together, which are often far better than any direct contribution you could have made.

Good luck out there.

-Patrick

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