Leadership & Confrontation

“I don’t do well with confrontation.”  It’s amazing to me how often I hear this phrase, or similar ones.  My clients, , my family, my friends, my colleagues — in every realm of my life, there appear to be a myriad of people who claim this as their truth.  It’s as though there’s something about “confrontation” that must be avoided.  And at first glance, I can see why.  Confrontation by its very nature is “in your face”; there’s always an energy of accusation on the one hand, and then defense on the other.  This sort of dynamic is anything but fun, admittedly.

All that being said, however, one of the things I know for sure is that confrontation can nearly always be reframed as “opportunity.”  When you consider the circumstance of someone having wronged you in some way — let’s say your friend has been taking advantage of your generosity — you could certainly confront them.  The implication when you do so is that you will vent, express your anger in a manner that’s somewhat forceful, and then expect an apology in return.  This would be the confrontational approach.  The opportunity in this circumstance, however, is to express your frustration with the express purpose of

a)  having your friend understand the impact of her behaviour, and

b)  exploring how the circumstance might change to everyone’s satisfaction.

In other words, in order to change confrontation to opportunity, you need to switch your intention from mere venting to resolving the issue at hand.

As leaders, situations of confrontation will arise more often than you might like.  Whether you’re a leader in the workplace, in your neighborhood, in your family or anywhere else, there will be times when things seem awry, when feelings get hurt, when situations need to be addressed.  If you come at these scenarios with the basic intention of venting, it will not be pleasant.  If, however, you shift your focus from confrontation to opportunity, you will always be able to have an experience that serves all concerned.  So really, confrontations can be seen as opportunity in disguise.