How Great Leaders Think: The Art of Reframing

Chapter 7The Leader as Warrior and Peacemaker

Conflict is an unwelcome but inevitable feature in relationships, groups, and organizations. When it surfaces, people typically try to smooth it over or avoid it. Left untended, it intensifies and festers, undermining communication, encouraging plots and sabotage, and producing disruptive explosions. People dislike and avoid conflict because they see it as dangerous, fear the emotional turmoil it generates, or distrust their own skills in confronting it. But conflict plays an integral role in leadership, and savvy leaders recognize its benefits: “a tranquil, harmonious organization may very well be an apathetic, uncreative, stagnant, inflexible and unresponsive organization.”¹ When leaders handle ...