Workplace Conflict Resolution: Iggy Perillo Of WSL Leadership On How Team Leaders Can Create The Right Environment To Resolve Conflicts
An Interview With Eric Pines
Separate judgment from behavior — focus on the behavior. Many leaders in conflicts get wrapped up in the story they are telling themselves about the behavior they see happening. Things like, “That person is doing that thing because they like picking a fight,” or “They’re doing that on purpose to make me look bad so they can take my job.” Those statements are strong judgments about something that is happening but not always tied to reality.
An important component of leadership is conflict resolution. Why is conflict resolution so important? How can leaders effectively incorporate conflict resolution into their work culture? In this interview series called “Workplace Conflict Resolution: How Team Leaders Can Create The Right Environment To Resolve Conflicts,” we are talking to business leaders who can share insights and anecdotes from their experience about how to implement Conflict Resolution at work. As part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Iggy Perillo, Founder of WSL Leadership.
Iggy wants leaders and educators to do right by their people. She started WSL Leadership to get emotional intelligence skills to people in positions of influence so they can shape the trajectory of our world. Iggy trains them to do the hardest part of great work more easily. She provides coaching and experiential workshops designed to make it simple for leaders and educators to connect with their people, create meaningful change and amplify positive culture. Iggy’s mission is for influential educators and leaders to leave a virtuous legacy through their work.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive into our discussion, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path?
Hello, thanks for inviting me to join you! I have so many memories of playing sports as a child and all the way though college. I loved being part of a team where everyone contributed and also had my first leadership roles as a team captain. Engaging with people in such a purposeful way made me appreciate the power of leadership to influence the team and our outcomes together. That really had an impact on me pursuing work where I could help leaders be a strong point of influence for the people on their teams.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?
“The most interesting” is hard to choose — one interesting experience I had was when I worked with a team of adult athletes undergoing profound loss after their beloved coach passed away just weeks before their international championship tournament. I worked with the team to process their grief and also make intentional plans to support each other when they were at the tournament. They did very well (they got to the championship match!) and were very happy with their performance. I was so proud of how they did — especially because I knew how hard the situation was for them. A few weeks later, I was walking down the street when a car pulled over and one of the players leaned out the window to thank me for supporting them. She said it was like I was there on the track with them. It was really touching.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life?
I worked for many years (decades!) leading wilderness-based leadership development courses for teens and adults. I frequently told my students, “Don’t practice crap.” It was delivered as a gentle reminder that they were doing some low-quality work, and those weren’t the skills they wanted to be practicing or perfecting. It usually got a chuckle and eventually made it into the school quote book, so now, even if I’m not working with students directly, they can access that sterling life lesson quote from me.
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
WSL Leadership is not your traditional leadership consultancy — I design workshops and organizational policy based on emotional intelligence so the participants can immediately have a positive impact on the people around them. The emotional intelligence focus combined with custom-designed workshops and policy makes my work resonate with my clients on a deeply human level. They feel heard, seen, valued, and ready to thrive when I work with them. My background as an experiential educator really sets me apart. I was recently working with a leader who wanted help making a workshop have a meaningful impact on his learners. We got into it, and I helped him create an experience that amplifies his emotional intelligence and is designed to increase empathy in organizational culture.
You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
Focus on transference — I am very directed by my mission to get emotionally intelligent tools into the hands of leaders and educators so they can amplify their impact and do right by their people. Sometimes folks want me to do the hard work for them, especially when conflict is involved. Even in those cases, I’m attentive to training everyone in the room to manage conflict down the road more skillfully.
Standing up for what I think is right even when I know it’s a harder path to take. I worked with an organization that wanted to change the organization’s conflict management policy. At first, they wanted to tweak the punitive system they had in place, but after working together, they concluded that their previous system was not working and they needed to start over with a new policy. It was more labor intensive because it was a policy and culture change for the organization. In the long run, valuing relationships was a bold move and has led to much better results than their previous model. I could have helped them prop up the rickety system they had, but I was stoked to help them burn it all down and start over.
Sense of humor — not everything has to be so serious. A little levity makes everything easier, funner, and more satisfying. I know I’m doing a good job with a workshop or presentation when there’s laughter from the attendees.
Leadership often entails making difficult decisions or hard choices between two apparently good paths. Can you share a story about a hard decision or choice you had to make as a leader?
I can think of a few times when I could have let things slide but instead took a stand to advocate for a better path. Once, I was in a position to tell some influential leaders that how they were doing things was damaging relationships with their staff. It was a very uncomfortable situation but I focused on educating them and stuck with it until they evolved toward awareness of the harm they were causing and attention to a deeper definition of support and inclusivity.
Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. Let’s start with a basic definition so that all of us are on the same page. What does Conflict Resolution mean?
Well…I think Conflict Resolution means you’ve solved the problem, and it’s all wrapped up with a nice, neat bow on top, and we never have to deal with it again. In reality, I don’t think that actually happens. I’m more a fan of the term conflict management — which means relationship management when things go off the rails somehow. Whenever we have tension in a relationship, we are working within the conflict management sphere. I know you like the term “conflict resolution” for this interview, and I’m happy to use that term….but in my mind, I mean conflict/relationship management.
What are some common misunderstandings about Conflict Resolution that are important to clear up?
Other than my thoughts on the previous question regarding the term “conflict management,” without attention to the power dynamics and history of the relationship that is at the heart of the conflict, it will never be managed in a way that creates a relationship that is stronger afterward than it was before. Emotional intelligence is the key to making that happen. The relationship may change, and there may be different boundaries, or perhaps unspoken expectations will come to light. Still, there is no “resolution” without attention to the relationship(s) between the people involved.
This might be intuitive to you, but it will be helpful to clearly express this. Can you please explain why it is so important for leaders to learn and deploy conflict resolution techniques?
Leaders are in hugely influential positions regarding the culture of their teams. Their attention to managing conflict can make or break the experience for their teammates. How a leader attends to the interpersonal relationships around them sets the tone for the organizational culture. A leader who manages conflicts with emotional intelligence can directly have a positive influence on the day-to-day experience of their people — and in that way, have a positive impact on the world around them. A leader with emotionally intelligent conflict management skills builds trust, and an environment of trust lets people do their best work.
On the flip side, what happens to a work culture when there is not an effective way of resolving conflict? How does it impact employees?
A leader who avoids conflict or manages it in a punitive or shaming way directly creates a toxic environment. A negative culture like that drains the life out of people and positions them to do terrible, uninspired, uncreative work (if they don’t flat-out quit). Places, for example, where some people (often high-performers) can break all the rules without consequence cultivate large numbers of teammates who are uninvested and distracted from team goals. This is a situation where a leader needs to be more effective at managing conflict. In these toxic cultures, people quiet quit, leave, internally sabotage, or do minimal effort work. All of this means that trust is corroded, and it is not a fun, joyful, or sustainable workplace. Who wants to be in a place like that?
Can you provide examples of how effective conflict resolution has led to increased team performance, collaboration, or innovation within your organization?
I’ve trained many leaders to manage conflict using emotional intelligence, and the results have been outstanding for their teams. The leaders of one sports team I worked with used their emotionally intelligent conflict management skills to clear some issues blocking their team’s performance, leading to literal wins on the scoreboard. Another leadership team I worked with at a nonprofit realized their internal conflicts were draining energy away from their organizational mission, so using their new skills, they developed more smooth and effective communication — even when they disagreed. I worked with rising leaders at another organization who were very focused on doing well and impressing their bosses, which sometimes meant they were ignoring the challenging dynamics that were arising. Those folks gained skills that helped them advance as leaders and support the organization by freeing their bosses from having to manage conflicts, making them star performers at the organization.
Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “Five Ways Every Team Leader Can Create The Right Environment To Resolve Conflicts”?
1 . Build trust — all the time — every day. I know there’s this weirdly popular model for telling people hard things that people use instead of emotionally intelligent conflict management skills — it’s the crap sandwich. Have you heard of it? Tell them something nice, tell them the hard thing, then tell them some other nice thing. This is a recipe for alienating your people and coming off like a super-fake bozo. Instead, you need to be consistently building trust with your people. This means showing appreciation, offering support, strong validation skills, and empathetic communication. If you have solid rapport and trust with your people, you don’t need to offer a veneer of compliments in order to tell someone a hard thing (like their behavior is not-ok or your relationship is suffering because of a conflict). If you feel like you need the crapwich format to engage in conflict management, this is a gigantic, glaring neon sign flashing that you need to build your habit of cultivating trust with your people. I’ve seen attention to building trust consistently (and avoiding crapwiches) be a cornerstone of strong and enduring organizations with dedicated staff and vibrant work cultures.
2 . Build your validation skills. This means expanding your repertoire of making your teammates feel heard and valued (even when you disagree with what they are saying). One organization I worked with was having trouble retaining talented staff because when the new folks brought a concern/complaint/conflict to the boss, he would respond with a story about how he’d managed something similar-ish in the past, and now everything was peachy. The staff members were not feeling heard or valued in that situation. When the boss worked on cultivating his validation skills and finding senior staff mentors who could actively validate the experience of their newer colleagues (without “soultionizing”) the newer folks stuck around longer.
3 . Consider the needs the problem behavior is trying to meet. I’m a big fan of William Glasser’s Five Basic Needs model. The super-quick sum-up is that all we do is behave and all our behavior is trying to meet one of five needs. When people are in conflict, it’s easy to get hooked by who said what or who did what when a much more productive lense is to consider what needs the problematic behavior is trying to meet and to work to meet those needs in a way that is more supportive of the team goals. I worked with a business owner who was struggling with the behavior of one of her direct reports. She was worried about what the other person was saying. When I coached her to step back and think about the need underlying the behavior, she came to a place where she could have a productive conversation about meeting needs to move things forward.
4 . Separate judgment from behavior — focus on the behavior. Many leaders in conflicts get wrapped up in the story they are telling themselves about the behavior they see happening. Things like, “That person is doing that thing because they like picking a fight,” or “They’re doing that on purpose to make me look bad so they can take my job.” Those statements are strong judgments about something that is happening but not always tied to reality. When folks making those statements can look at the specific behavior (things like, “I asked for that work to be done on Monday, and I didn’t get it until Thursday”), the conversation (and conflict) shifts from attack-counterattack to “how can we solve this problem together.” I’ve seen some amazing dialogue open when leaders can separate themselves from the story (judgment) of the conflict they’re seeing and focus on what behavior is needed (or not needed). Everything shifts when this happens.
5 . Use clear, consistent conflict management tools. Teaching emotionally intelligent conflict management processes to your leadership team and your teammates is an amazing way to empower everyone to take action when conflict arises. When I lead workshops, I zero in on this type of knowledge transference so that every team member can be on the side of conflict management. When everyone knows what to expect when there’s a conflict, the fear of engaging in the process is eradicated, communication lines are open, and people feel more comfortable and confident taking action to deal with conflict. Having everyone speak the same language when conflict happens is one of the best ways to create the right environment for managing conflict.
In your experience, what are the most common sources of conflict within a team, and how do you proactively address these potential issues before they escalate?
I see a lot of conflicts caused by unspoken expectations, a disconnect between stated values and the actual values/culture of the team, and poor communication skills.
I find that revisiting teammate expectations collaboratively can bond a group tightly and eliminate unspoken expectation conflicts.
Similarly, when leaders have been at it for a while, the values often devolve into a dusty poster or part of the organizational website that hasn’t been updated in years (when was the last time you looked at your “company values” page?). Collectively, revisiting, refreshing, and reconnecting with the values is a great way to make them alive and relevant while also exploring where they are not being upheld and what to do to ensure conflicts don’t fester.
Poor communication skills can be redirected with emotional intelligence training and/or coaching. We generally don’t have a good idea of how we’re coming across to others so a good first step is to get solid feedback from a trusted source. Then dive into emotional intelligence coaching to find ways to rewire the potential conflict causes hiding in poor communication skills. We all think we’re awesome communicators — but that’s not actually always the case. Even leaders who are good communicators can benefit from building their emotionally intelligent skills — this can be what moves them from pretty good to excellent leaders.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
It’s a bit radical, but I’d throw away progressive discipline processes and institute restorative justice based practices at every organization. Internal organizational policies and practices focused on justice and strengthening relationships will change the world.
How can our readers further follow you online?
Come on over to wslleadership.com to get my newsletter, writing, podcast, workshops, and all the things. You can get a free copy of my emotionally intelligent conflict management guide there too!
Thank you for the time you spent sharing these fantastic insights. We wish you only continued success in your great work!
About the Interviewer: Eric L. Pines is a nationally recognized federal employment lawyer, mediator, and attorney business coach. He represents federal employees and acts as in-house counsel for over fifty thousand federal employees through his work as a federal employee labor union representative. A formal federal employee himself, Mr. Pines began his federal employment law career as in-house counsel for AFGE Local 1923 which is in Social Security Administration’s headquarters and is the largest federal union local in the world. He presently serves as AFGE 1923’s Chief Counsel as well as in-house counsel for all FEMA bargaining unit employees and numerous Department of Defense and Veteran Affairs unions.
While he and his firm specialize in representing federal employees from all federal agencies and in reference to virtually all federal employee matters, his firm has placed special attention on representing Veteran Affairs doctors and nurses hired under the authority of Title. He and his firm have a particular passion in representing disabled federal employees with their requests for medical and religious reasonable accommodations when those accommodations are warranted under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (ADA). He also represents them with their requests for Federal Employee Disability Retirement (OPM) when an accommodation would not be possible.
Mr. Pines has also served as a mediator for numerous federal agencies including serving a year as the Library of Congress’ in-house EEO Mediator. He has also served as an expert witness in federal court for federal employee matters. He has also worked as an EEO technical writer drafting hundreds of Final Agency Decisions for the federal sector.
Mr. Pines’ firm is headquartered in Houston, Texas and has offices in Baltimore, Maryland and Atlanta, Georgia. His first passion is his wife and five children. He plays classical and rock guitar and enjoys playing ice hockey, running, and biking. Please visit his websites at www.pinesfederal.com and www.toughinjurylawyers.com. He can also be reached at eric@pinesfederal.com.
Workplace Conflict Resolution: Iggy Perillo Of WSL Leadership On How Team Leaders Can Create The… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.