Upskilling Employees in Emotional Intelligence Frees Their Managers From Conflict Intervention

By Brenda Smyth, Content Creator, Faculty Department, SkillPath Seminars

Upskilling managers in conflict resolution isn't the answer to preventing workplace conflict. Building an emotionally intelligent team is. 

Conflict at work has a staggering price tag, hurting productivity, causing stress, making employees leave their jobs and in healthcare settings, impacting patient care. Organizations (and employees) routinely rely on managers to step in, to intervene when workers’ personalities, opinions, or work styles collide. To that end, conflict management is part of most management training. And by some estimates, managers spend on average four hours a week dealing with it.  

But should they deal with it?

Instead, if workers were able to navigate uncomfortable or frustrating situations themselves and prevent them from turning into harmful conflict, management intervention would be unnecessary. Research recently cited by Harvard Business Review considers this hidden impact of workforce training in general. Following upskilling, organizations regularly measure new efficiencies and capabilities in trained workers without considering the direct impact of that training on workers’ managers. When upskilled workers require less assistance, managers retain potentially lost hours. 

Emotional intelligence is a conflict-prevention skill

Teams are a vital part of healthcare. Highly skilled, specialized professionals move to various care teams as their unique expertise is needed. But teamwork calls for more than technical know-how; connecting, collaborating and resolving conflict are required for high performance. These abilities are not automatic.

Emotional intelligence has been shown to strengthen team communication and improve trust. These skills help people address personality clashes and disagreement more easily, without damaging work relationships. But it’s estimated that only around 36% of people worldwide are emotionally intelligent. 

In most professions, including healthcare, employees are hired for technical skills first. If they lack emotional intelligence skills, they struggle to address tense situations or the toxic personalities they sometimes encounter on the job.  
Because they’re uncomfortable disagreeing or addressing difficult behavior constructively, they react poorly in one of several ways. They avoid what they anticipate will be an awkward conversation, they concede even when they don’t agree, or they respond aggressively to get their way. All these reactions do nothing to deal with the conflict and have consequences for both workers and the organizations they work for. Poor emotional intelligence causes ongoing stress, dysfunction, miscommunication and can eventually lead to the need for management intervention. 

Emotional intelligence isn’t a personality trait

Ideally, every employee would be emotionally intelligent. You could roll out an accurate test or self-assessment to pinpoint the perfect hires. But the numbers don’t allow for that. With only 36% of people being emotionally intelligent and the already-low pool of healthcare candidates, the math doesn’t work.

But the good news: emotional intelligence is not a personality trait and can be improved with training. “Research shows that people with average or below average emotional intelligence can do just as well as others by learning it.” That means a promising technically skilled nurse with a tendency to demand that things go their way rather than listening to other opinions can learn to tread more thoughtfully. With training, you can prioritize technical skills when hiring and upskill for low emotional intelligence, taking the burden off management for conflict intervention.

By helping workers become more self-aware, have better emotional regulation and be open to the views of others, relationships and teams improve. This means less harmful conflict, better overall productivity, and higher employee wellbeing and retention.  

Human emotions are part of every workplace. And it’s easy to fall into the trap of relying on managers to intervene when conflict turns ugly. But by creating a team of emotionally intelligent individuals, that intervention won’t be necessary. Managers can focus on other things. And teams will be happier and more productive. ♦

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Author bio:

Brenda Smyth is a content creator for the Faculty Department of SkillPath Seminars. Drawing from 20+ years of business and management experience, she flavors her writing with real people and experiences. She combats relaxation by always having at least one side gig and, as a business writer, is draw to behavior science topics. Her writings have appeared on Forbes.com and Entrepreneur.com.

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