Despite our many principles and strongly held beliefs, it is often possible to feel one way about something but not to act on those principles when it involves other people. I am as guilty of this as anyone and there are good reasons for this behaviour. It is often seen that a personal belief, even about professional matters is isolated to the actions of an individual; if I believe that employees should be treated with respect then that is how I will approach employees, but this does not necessarily extend to speaking to colleagues who do not show the same respect.
These conflicting actions, whilst appearing to be weakness can in fact be explained by competing commitments, this is referred to by Laskow Lahey and Kegan in their book ‘the way we talk can change the way we work’. It is that our commitment to work is in opposition to our commitments to our belief system.
If we use the example above, we can see that the personal belief in respect as a work ethic of importance is not extended to the obligations of our staff or colleagues to treat people in a similar manner. To ignore our colleagues behaviour when it goes against our belief systems shows that there is another commitment at work in opposition to our personal beliefs; this could be the commitment to team cohesion that we are reluctant to damage, or to non-confrontation for fear of lowering moral or enthusiasm in staff or colleagues, or it could be a fear that confrontation will lower the standing and respect levels of staff and colleagues towards ourselves.
These conflicts are not easily overcome, because both conflicting commitments are important, and the fears are valid; if these actions did lead to the negative implications described, it could become very difficult to work effectively. Traditionally the approach to this situation would be to weigh up one set of consequences against the other and the resulting outcome would be the response that offered the most favourable probabilities for us, our staff, and our colleagues. However, there are other alternatives to this view, it is possible to reach more than a compromise by actively assessing the conflicting commitments.
If in the example given, your personal beliefs were initially outweighed by the other commitments and fears, the answer to reaching a conclusion is to firstly identify the conflict and pinpoint the fears preventing you from acting in the way you know is right. Secondly, it is then important to analyse these fears to assess whether they are realistic and valid. Some fears will not be, i.e., it is unlikely that staff or colleagues will lose respect for someone who is genuinely upholding their beliefs and values. If the fears are valid i.e. the loss of moral through discipline, then it is important to find a method of approaching this that will minimise the impact of the intervention; after all, you have the decreased morale of someone who feels disciplined to weigh against the increased morale of someone who previously felt disrespected and no longer does.
This is the point at which you turn to your management and training toolkit, there are many ways of addressing issues, such as group discussions, informal chats, formal procedures, further training, teambuilding events etc.
By highlighting and assessing the conflicting priorities it is possible to either negate or overcome the obstacles to following the correct course of action. A very good starting point to all of this is to write down the conflicting pressures and deal with them one by one. By doing this regularly you will find that you build up an ability to assess these internal conflicts more swiftly and affect more lasting and appropriate change through targeted and appropriate action.
Overall, you will become a more effective leader if you are able to follow your moral and ethical compass without hindrance from your social and professional fears.
Shevek Pring 