Courageous leaders actively encourage diversity of thought and so they walk towards such situations and invite people to share honestly. For them to share honestly then the leader must drop the defensive behaviour – do not justify or Igniting conflict courageouslyblame; try dropping “why” questions from your vocabulary and replace with statements like “tell me more…..or talk me through how you got to that decision”.

The difference is remarkable. People open up and walk towards the conflict rather than away from it. So courageous leaders encourage and ignite conflict so they then have the opportunity to resolve it constructively.

We invite you to share your thoughts.