Three conflicts, one lesson

Staying neutral is key in successful conflict management

The first time I had to face a real conflict, I was directly involved.

A writer I managed, who was also a genuine friend before we ever worked together, didn't take the feedback on her writing well. The issues were straightforward on paper: the content wasn't optimized, the structure and keywords needed work. But every time a piece came back with notes, or she messaged me on Slack about it, the tone was negative, sometimes outright combative. I didn't know how to separate the friend from the manager, so for a while, I just avoided the conversation entirely.

When intent was misunderstood

Eventually I asked my own line manager for guidance, and he suggested a proper one-on-one to actually address it. Before I set up that call, I did something I don't think I'd have thought to do a few years earlier: I took a course on conflict management because avoiding hard conversations was, and honestly still can be, my default instinct.

Going through the messages beforehand, the pattern was clear. She was taking the critique personally, not as feedback about the work. So I let her raise her concerns first, then made it clear that none of it was ever about bringing her down; it was about helping her improve. That was it. The issue resolved itself once she understood the intent behind it. It's still, in hindsight, one of the more straightforward cases I've dealt with, because the fix wasn't complicated once the real issue, hurt feelings, was actually named out loud.

When egos got in the way

The second case was harder, and it didn't start with me at all.

A writer who'd previously reported to me reached out after a confrontation with a lead. I called them first to get a better understanding of the incident from their perspective. Underneath the frustration was a real grievance: an agreement I’d previously approved got in the way and seemed to have caused (indirectly) the upset. I told them straight up that losing their temper was not acceptable, and that I would hear the other person’s side of the story before we proceeded to resolve it properly.

The lead’s side was just as relevant: they could not move past the confrontation. I proposed we proceed with a mediated conversation, the three of us, instead of allowing it to fester. They agreed.

Going into the call I set some ground rules to ensure we made progress and avoid going in circles. No finger-pointing, stick to neutral language, and allow each person a fair turn to speak without interrupting them. Even with these rules in place the conversation still got tense, with me having to de-escalate a couple of times. Along the way I also came to learn that the process had been quietly undermined outside the room.

In the end, the two of them didn't reconcile. What I could control was making sure neither of them was left in an unworkable situation, so the team was shuffled around a bit. Not every conflict ends in resolution between the two people involved. Sometimes the honest outcome is to separate them cleanly and make sure nobody's left exposed.

When there was a serious misunderstanding

There was a third situation, a serious, damaging misunderstanding between two colleagues that turned out, once both sides sat down together, to be exactly that: a misunderstanding. I'm keeping the details out of this case on purpose. Some conflicts, even those resolved, deserve to remain private to the people who lived through them. What I'll say is that it was the case that hit me hardest personally, because I knew both people well enough to find the accusation genuinely hard to believe, and staying calm and neutral while still taking it seriously was the most difficult balance I've had to hold in any of these.

What was actually hard about all of this

Across all three, the technical part, setting up calls, establishing ground rules, giving each side the floor, was never the difficult bit. What was hard was staying neutral when I could see both sides clearly enough to sympathize with each.

The first case was the easiest, because the fix was really about one person understanding intent. The second was harder because it involved egos. The third was hardest of all, not because the process was complicated, but because my own emotional read on the people involved made staying calm and impartial a genuine effort, not a given.

The course I mentioned earlier helped more than I expected. Not with the mechanics; I mostly already knew those, and I now apply the same five-step process in conflict management, but with something quieter: learning not to let ego or emotion, mine included, get in the way. That doing the right thing for the team means separating the work from the emotion, no matter how close you are to the people involved.