T5. Mastering conflict
Address issues openly and constructively. Healthy conflict strengthens trust.
Resources to support growth in this behaviour
Whether this behaviour has been chosen through Step 1. Diagnose, highlighted through reflection or coaching, or identified as a school or trust priority, you can now follow the steps below to develop and embed it in your daily leadership practice.
Step 2. Learn: Read Everyone Succeeds: 54 Leadership Behaviours to Transform Your School to understand what great leadership looks like in practice. Each behaviour is grounded in research and real examples from schools and businesses.
Step 3. Reflect: Use the Everyone Succeeds Workbook to apply ideas to your own context.
Guided reflection, practical actions, and space for planning turn understanding into improvement.
Step 4. Apply: Work through the Leadership Toolkit for this behaviour. Use the Mastering Conflict toolkit to surface tensions safely, resolve issues constructively, and build healthier relationships.
Step 5. Coach and practice: Use the Mastering conflict Coach and Practise Frameworks to strengthen the behaviour through action steps that address tension constructively, rehearsing difficult conversations so issues are resolved rather than avoided.
These can be used individually or with colleagues to embed key behaviours.
Step 6. Plan: Set measurable goals using the 90 Day Leadership Planner.
Turn improvement into action by tracking your focus and progress over time, with completed examples for different career stages.
Step 7. Lead: Apply your learning to real situations through the Scenario Finder.
Over fifty scenarios link directly to the behaviours that help you solve the challenges that matter most in your school.
One book suggestion
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team – Patrick Lencioni (2002).
This book strengthens your practice by showing how healthy conflict enables creativity, clarity and commitment. Buy the book.
References from the Everyone Succeeds book
Jehn, K. A. (1995). A Multimethod Examination of the Benefits and Detriments of Intragroup Conflict. “Administrative Science Quarterly,” 40(2), 256-282.
Lencioni, P.M. (2012) The advantage: Why organisational health trumps everything else in business. John Wiley & Sons.