Valuable Leadership Lessons Come From the Sandtraps
My mother recently suffered her second heart attack. After her sta at the hospital, she checked into a assisted living home.
 Upon her arrival there, she was greeted by one of her lifelong friends, Nell. Nell told me that she and my mother used to be golfing buddies.
She laughed and said, "Yeah, Kathryn and I had a lot of fun getting out of the sand traps together."
Even though Nell's comments were meant as a joke, she has shared a great leadership lesson with us. Just think about the wisdom of two elderly individuals in the twilight years of their lives reminiscing about the fun they had shared overcoming the difficulties of sand traps.
Isn't that what makes the golf course and life interesting, the difficulties and obstacles? Would you want to play a golf course without water hazards and sand traps? You may be saying to yourself, "Is this guy for real? I would love to play that course."
If you really give it some serious thought, you would not think very highly of a course without water, sand traps, and other hazards. You would not appreciate or be proud of your score on such a course.
Likewise, should we expect to go through life without challenges and difficulties? Should leaders expect not to endure hardships and conflict? Should we expect to live life in this world free of trouble and conflict?
Many leaders try to avoid trouble and conflict of any kind in their organizations, and this is a mistake. Conflict is a given. Leaders who don't allow for conflict end up with subversives sabotaging progress and processes. Subversion is more dangerous that overt conflict because it often goes undetected like a cancer, until it is often to late and a major uprising occurs.
There are two types of conflict that arise in organizations, emotional, and cognitive. Emotional conflict is personal and defensive. It derives from ego, is fed by tension and pressure and grows into anger. In short, emotional conflict is bad stuff and can destroy relationships and organizations if not controlled.
Managers should become adept at identifying emotional conflict and channeling it toward cognitive conflict. Cognitive conflicts are arguments of merit about ideas and thus stimulate creative thinking. Innovative leaders should encourage cognitive conflict for greater understanding, better decision-making and greater acceptance.
Leaders should encourage their teams to engage in open and healthy conflict because healthy conflict can produce better decisions and stronger relationships.
Here are a few of my simple rules to healthy cognitive conflict: seek first to understand before trying to be understood, conflict does not hinder productivity if controlled and make sure your team understands and accepts the vision, mission and purpose of your team. Most harmful conflict occurs because of a lack of shared vision.
True leaders don't avoid conflict, but recognize it is better to proactively manage it, because if they don't, trouble eventually will come looking for you. Isolationism doesn't work on an international level and it doesn't work on a interpersonal level. We leaders must recognize that conflict is a natural occurrence in live, embrace it and learn to play through it.
At the end of your round, while enjoying the 19th hole, you will have a greater appreciation for the game.
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