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DEALING WITH POWER IMBALANCE IN THE WORKPLACE
COURTESY HUMANLINKS.COM
Power imbalance breeds resentment and anger. When an employee feels
strongly that there is a power imbalance with his or her supervisor,
it does not matter whether that power imbalance is real or perceived.
What matters is knowing what to do to resolve the situation and to
prevent it from turning into a destructive personal war.
As a workplace mediator, I often get called in to mediate these
situations. A good way to start is by understanding the employee’s
feelings. However, after she or he feels heard and understood, it is
quite important to shift her/his mind, from the past to the future.
Although the problem is in the past, any resolution can only be found
in the future. Talking about the future is safe. There is no need to
feel
angry; no need to feel resentful.
In mediation an employee might be asked: Imagine that this problem
between you and your supervisor has been resolved. How would things be
different tomorrow morning? What would you like the supervisor to do
for you differently than yesterday? And what are you willing to do
differently in exchange? A future-oriented approach allows (actually
forces) the employee’s mind to stop dwelling on negative feelings and
to start thinking in terms of behavioral changes. The employee also
starts looking at the relationship with the supervisor in terms of
common responsibility and mutual benefit, rather than as a power
struggle.
Getting clear answers to the question “What are you willing to do
differently?” always takes considerably more time and effort than the
previous question, “What would you like the supervisor to do
differently
for you?”
Expressions like “I’ll try to do this” or “I’ll do my best” sound
great, but they don’t yield any practical results. Unless the employee
is willing and committed to take specific actions on her/his
own — almost disregarding what the supervisor will do differently —
nothing much is going to happen.
Catch-22 situations, where the employee and supervisor are each —
suspiciously — simply waiting for the other to change first, don’t
resolve their conflict. As a matter of fact, they make it worse.
To overcome this problem, mediators typically use some challenging but
quite effective role-playing techniques with both employee and
supervisor, in separate and joint sessions. This way it is possible to
assess how committed they are in working together to resolve their
conflict by each changing something in their habitual behavior.
Who would be most effective to intervene in an employee/supervisor
conflict? Human resource managers have the training, experience and
people skills for resolving conflict. Besides, who can appreciate the
importance of a balanced and constructive supervisor/employee
relationship, more than a human resource manager?
The problem is a disgruntled employee may consider the human resource
manager to be the supervisor’s ally. Consequently, any suggestion made
by the human resource manager — no matter how reasonable and fair —
may be rejected out of hand. This is why workplace disputes are
usually much easier to resolve if they are handled by a third party,
such as an external mediator, who is accepted by both employee and
supervisor as totally neutral to their conflict.
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