“You would have thought he would have at least stopped and asked him what was going on. He has never once behaved like that at work. Don’t you think his boss should have asked if he was okay or something?”
My friend said this to me while explaining that her brother was suspended from work without pay for lashing out at a colleague. The altercation was verbal not physical and occurred because the colleague had undermined her brother’s authority. Neither of them were able to resolve conflict at work in this heated moment.
“I know he shouldn’t have done it, but doesn’t context matter?” she implored.
Turns out the context (background) was not only the undermining of authority but also the fact that my friend and her brother had just lost their mother AND his little girl was in the hospital. Truth be told, he probably shouldn’t have been at work to begin with, given the stress he was under. But my friend says their work culture is one in which they all pretend work and “life” exist in two completely different compartments, and YOU better be dead or in the hospital to not make it to work.
As we launch our series on how to resolve conflict at work, I can’t help but think about this story my friend shared with me. If you are a leader in an organization, you can take your first cue from this story and realize that if you don’t know the stress that others may be under (inside or outside of work) and actively work to help them manage it, you may not be the best leader.