Understanding workplace conflict: From disagreements to damage

Conflict is part of working life. Put people with different responsibilities, priorities and perspectives together and disagreement is bound to happen.

That is not necessarily a bad thing.

A team where nobody challenges anything might look harmonious, but it is not necessarily functioning well. People may have learned that it is safer to keep quiet, decisions may go untested and concerns that should have been raised early can emerge much later, at which point, they are harder to deal with.

The real leadership challenge is knowing the difference between healthy disagreement and damaging conflict, and being prepared to act when the line between the two is crossed.

The scale of workplace conflict

The scale of the issue is considerable. Acas's latest research found that 44% of working-age adults in had experienced conflict at work during the previous 12 months. More than half of those people said the conflict had affected them through stress, anxiety or depression, while almost half reported a drop in motivation or commitment.

The same research also tells us something important about how conflict is actually dealt with. Most people who experienced it tried to resolve it informally, most commonly by talking to their manager or to the person involved.

That puts conflict management firmly within the scope of leadership and it cannot be something that only becomes relevant once HR gets involved.

What is conflict management?

Conflict management is about dealing with disagreement in a way that allows people to work through the issue and continue working effectively.

It does not always mean getting everyone to agree.

Sometimes the outcome of a good conversation is simply that people understand one another's position, accept that they see things differently and agree how they will work together from that point onwards.

That distinction matters because trying to eliminate disagreement can be just as unhelpful as ignoring it. The aim is to make disagreement manageable rather than making agreement compulsory.

Why does workplace conflict matter to leaders?

The obvious cost of conflict is the time it takes, however, the more significant consequences are often less visible.

A difficult relationship can affect how readily people share information. Someone who no longer trusts a colleague may stop asking for their input. A disagreement that is never properly addressed can spread into the wider team and people start taking sides. Meetings become guarded and decisions take longer.

Acas estimates the annual cost of conflict in Great Britain at £28.5 billion. Its latest research also found that 19% of people who experienced conflict took no action to address it.

Sometimes leaving something alone is the right decision because not every irritation warrants intervention, but the problem is when inaction becomes the default.

CIPD research has previously highlighted a gap between how managers and organisations believe they handle conflict and the experience of employees on the receiving end. It also found that managers can be just as likely to make a conflict worse as they are to resolve it.

That is an uncomfortable finding, but an important one. Before asking what two colleagues are doing wrong, leaders should consider whether their own behaviour, decisions or lack of clarity have helped create the situation.

Is conflict always a bad thing?

No. But neither is all conflict productive.

There has been considerable research into different forms of team conflict, including disagreements about tasks, relationships, processes and status. The evidence is more complicated than the often-repeated idea that "task conflict is good, relationship conflict is bad".

What matters is what happens to the disagreement.

A robust discussion about a strategic decision can help a team spot something it has missed. The same discussion can deteriorate quickly if people begin questioning each other's competence or motives.

This is why leaders should be very wary of categorising conflict too neatly in the pursuit of a quick resolution. The subject of the disagreement is only part of the story. How people behave during it matters enormously and can have long and far reaching impacts.

The goal for a leader is not to create teams that never disagree but to create teams where disagreement can happen without becoming personal or destructive.