Heart- and Human-Centred Leadership in Conflict

Edited May 9, 2023, to reflect important clarification about “big C” vs. “small c” conflicts.

I was cleaning up my desktop and uncovered this piece that I had created for a course I took in early 2021 on Managing Difficult Relationships Within and Across Community Dynamics. This was a course I deeply appreciated, because it helped me to consider healthy ways to observe conflict and navigate through it, and because it helped me to look at conflict at both a systems and a human level.

It’s important to note that many of our texts were rooted in “big C” Conflict (aka war); some texts—and many of our course discussions—were rooted in the “small C” conflict that we all experience at some point, within organizations, communities, and interpersonal relationships. I name this because I did refer to influential concepts in texts that are about both kinds of conflicts, and it’s critical to be sure that when we refer to conflict dynamics (which might share some similarities) we are not conflating the specifics of a “big C” Conflict with those of a “small c” conflict (e.g., equating how folks addressed civil war with how to deal with one’s in-laws at the holidays is unlikely to move a conversation forward productively).

As I look back at my assignment, so many elements still hold true to my values and what I believe is effective when it comes to leadership in conflict. As I consider the times I have not embodied these concepts, I have learned that it is because I’ve not centred myself (perhaps because I forgot to prioritize it, and perhaps because I didn’t have the energy to do so), which sometimes results in getting stuck in my ego (or crisis mode), which then makes it very difficult to listen at all levels.

Returning to this after some time, an additional layer I would now add to “in our control” is an understanding that I must be well enough and/or have sufficient energy to access the parts of me that enable good decision making and my tools to ground or centre myself. If I’m not well enough to do this, I have a responsibility to be honest with myself about that and then determine what resources I need in order to show up in the way that I need to, which then leads to the final point of what’s “in our control.”