Joe is unequivocal: if you are a conflict-avoidant manager, your team does not trust you. You think you’re being nice, but you’re destroying the trust between you and your team. The tell is simple — if people are constantly bringing conflict to you, you are conflict-avoidant, because you’re not dealing with it proactively and it just exacerbates.
“Any conflict avoidant manager — if you are listening to this and you are a conflict avoidant manager — your team does not trust you. I guarantee it. I guarantee your team doesn’t trust you. You think you’re being nice but what you’re doing is you are destroying the trust between you and your team.”
Trust is built by having difficult conversations, not avoiding them. Not doing what you say, allowing non-accountability, not dealing with dirty laundry — whether between people, about a failing product, or about uncomfortable personal truths — all destroy trust. Bringing it up is how trust is created. It might be hard, but it’s the path.
“If you have people bringing conflict to you all the time then you are conflict avoidant because you’re not dealing with the conflict and so it just exacerbates and gets worse and worse.”
Related Concepts
- Fear of anger drives conflict avoidance
- Nice cultures breed passive aggression
- Trust is the universal ingredient of functional teams
- Conflict is necessary for building trust
- Conflict-avoidant leaders trade short-term comfort for long-term pain