Confrontation 101: Which Path Will You Take?
Confront: “To face. To bring face to face with (the facts).”
We are often afraid to confront because we are afraid of how the other person will respond. We are often afraid to confront for fear the other person won’t like us anymore. Because of these fears, we often don’t confront other people’s behavior that is unacceptable to us. When we consistently fail to confront, the predictable results are:
- Our needs are not met
- Resentment builds
- Cumulative damage to the relationship! (loss of productivity, etc.)
Therefore, we must be willing and able to confront effectively, when the inevitable unacceptable behaviors of our workmates occur.
Acknowledge that confronting is in fact a request for change, which means it will always contain some element of threat, and thus will always require some degree of courage. Also it often ends up as a “conflict of needs,” which we deal with in our leadership training program designed by Dr. Thomas Gordon.
However, the reason most confrontation is so painful is that our traditional cultural model for confronting is unnecessarily blameful, controlling, and punishing. No wonder we hate to confront! But what if there were some skills you could learn in a leadership training program that would not only take the sting out of confrontation, but strengthen the relationship? That would be pretty cool, yes?
This infographic shows two very different paths to confrontation—which one will you take the next time your workmate, spouse, boss or friend causes you a problem?
Confrontation 101 – An infographic by the team at leadership training
