Unresolved Conflict

Last year, I was heading a committee to organise a one-day charity carnival and my close friend, Lynn was part of the committee. As the date of the event approached, Lynn was suddenly irresponsive and eventually stonewalled with the tasks assigned to her. In the end, the whole committee had to work extra hard to complete her task.

After the event, the real conflict arises. I called her to arrange for a meeting to talk about this issue. To my shock, she immediately started crying, saying that she didn't want to talk about this and assuring me that it would never happen again.The same thing happened for the subsequent attempts. I couldn't start a proper conversation with her without her crying non-stop. To me, she was engaging in emotional blackmail to avoid the confrontation. Her refusal to face the confrontation created an unspoken conflict between both of us. Eventually, I stopped pursuing the issue, because I was not sure how best to handle it. Today, we are still friends, but this conflict remains unresolved.

Upon reflection, I understood my motivation of initiating the meeting as one in which I sought to fully understand the situation to avoid any possibilities of misunderstanding each other. After speaking with other friends, I came to realise that she acted that way purely out of the fear of any forms of confrontation, thinking that shoving everything unpleasant under the carpet would protect each other’s feelings and preserve our friendship. I learnt from this experience that the main factor that perpetuated the conflict was the depth of friendship involved. If our friendship were shallow, any form of emotional manipulation might have been much less effective.

Dear readers, what would you have done in my place to resolve this conflict?

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Resolution to this conflict:

As you have read from the post above, the conflict remains unresolved till this day. As much as I hope to resolve the conflict, I don't see how I can do that without her using her tears as weapon. If you are a biology student, you will probably know of the "fight or flight" principle. In facing a crisis, one can fight or flee. In this case, I choose to flee, leaving the conflict as where it was and "flee" from working with her again, until the right time arrives when I can talk to her calmly about this matter.

That doesn't sound like a happy ending, does it?

EDITED

Why effective communication is important for me?

"Communication is the real work of leadership." - Nitin Nohria-

Having the opportunities to take up different leadership roles in various settings, I can't agree more with the quote above. The major responsibilities of a leader include vision casting, task delegation, external liaison, etc. All these are mainly done through communication; however, it's not an easy task. Let me illustrate my point through some examples.

In delegating tasks, if one is too assertive, his/her team-mate may felt that he/she is forced to do it. If too gentle, he/she may not take it seriously. In confronting problematic team-mates, strict comments may cause people to feel condemned; however, weak confrontation with too much encouragement will not be effective in addressing the issues either.

Apart from handling internal matters, a leader is also a spoke-person representing his/her organisation. In liaison with external parties, e-mail etiquette is important to portray a professional image of the organisation. During different networking settings, simple gestures such as firm handshakes and smiles, body postures and tone of speech are critical to make a good impression.

Above are some of the aspects of communication that I struggled through the most in my journey in growing as a leader. Through these encounters I learnt that effective communication is a very critical criteria for effective leadership. This is why I take up this module to work on my communication skills, so that I can be a better communicator, and thus, a better leader.