4/3/2025 What’s the Problem and How to Solve It: How Leaders Can Support Peer-to-Peer Conflict Resolution
Turn conflict into clarity with a simple, effective peer-to-peer resolution approach.
Within any organization, but especially in complex organizations, peer-to-peer conflicts come with the job. When everyone is moving at lightning speed, roles and responsibilities are ambiguous, or the pace of the work is simply impossible to keep — as human beings, we’re likely to let someone down at least once.
In the best working and learning environments, we can raise our hand and say, “I made a mistake, I’m so sorry,” and everyone can move on. But some mistakes, misunderstandings, and missed expectations aren’t as easy to resolve. Many leaders don’t want to get involved in the tiny squabbles of their teams — and rightly so! But teams who are constantly embroiled in conflict aren’t productive, don’t meet goals, and don’t grow professionally or personally. So even if you aren’t a touchy-feely leader, ensuring that your team is well equipped with the personal and professional skills to identify, mediate, and move on from internal, peer-to-peer conflicts is essential to cultivating a healthy organization that reaches its goals. Problems vs. conflicts
Problems are challenging or complex barriers to a goal that require a solution. Problems come up in everyone’s job and they usually aren’t emotionally disruptive. They may be stressful, for sure, but they don’t usually create reactive or negative feelings toward a colleague, team member or supervisor.
Problems need to be solved. Conflicts, on the other hand, need to be resolved. Conflicts occur when problems become personal and involve hurt feelings, which can tap into an individual’s values around trust, transparency, and fairness. When a problem escalates to a conflict, the team has to address the barrier, as well as the interpersonal conflicts that have emerged. Peer-to-peer clearing conversation
In healthy organizations, peers can identify when a problem has evolved into a conflict, engage in personal reflection to identify the root issues, and engage in seeking solutions. These processes bring people closer together, increase trust, and improve morale.
Most adults don’t have formal education in conflict resolution so it’s valuable to spend some time with your team talking through the importance of personal reflection, expectations setting, and ways of communicating to increase connection and reduce conflicts. Consider practicing these types of conversations with low-stakes issues and ensuring that everyone feels comfortable with the reflective activity as a routine in your professional learning and team building time. After establishing some of the basic principles of expectations setting, the Peer-to-Peer Clearing Protocol is a set of steps that two people can follow in order to “clear the air” after a pain point or conflict. The chart below outlines the steps someone might take when they realize they’re experiencing a conflict with a colleague that just isn’t going away on its own. Mediating a clearing conversation
Sometimes conflicts between peers or between leaders and those they supervise become too intense for them to process independently. Having a third party mediate the discussion can create the important space that each person needs to hear alternate perspectives and move into healthy and productive agreements moving forward.
A note on workplace harassment and improper conduct
Most conflicts between team members are caused by gaps in communication, missed expectations, personality differences, or working styles. Sometimes, an issue stems from an incident of workplace harassment or improper conduct. In these situations, always follow your organization's policies for reporting to your Title IX office, Human Resource representative, or mandated reporting policies.
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