Escalation Resolution Tips for Leaders
Successful leaders know how to safely and calmly resolve situations in which a person is escalating their behavior to a level that is hurtful or unsafe. When running a business, especially one that has many employees and many customers, you will often encounter people who are unhappy or want to create problems. Balancing confidence, setting boundaries, and maintaining composure are all critical to resolving difficult and escalated situations.
Stick to what you know. If you are in a leadership position, chances are you are an expert in what you do. You have put in the work to not only be knowledgeable about your job, but also to coach others to help you. Sometimes you will not know the answer to every question–and being honest about when you do not know the answer is critical–however, leaders must also be confident in what they do know. Specifically, young leaders who may be new to their position, might struggle to maintain confidence while confronting someone who is being difficult. You may question whether you are actually correct simply because someone raises their voice to make you feel inferior, and if this person is older or more senior than you, it may feel even more demeaning.
The best way to handle this is to try not to take anything personally. This can be very difficult to do, especially if you are dealing with past emotional trauma, but the key to remaining in control of your reactions is to let the insults bounce off you like a personal bubble. Often times when someone begins directly insulting you to your face it is because either something else in their life is causing them emotional distress and they are choosing to take it out on you, or they are trying to hide the true intent of what they are doing by distracting you. Either way, all you can do in this situation is try to remove all assumptions that you are making about the situation and stand your ground on what you do know for sure.
Protect yourself. Sometimes, when situations escalate, the person doing the escalation might verbally, or even physically threaten you. This can be very scary to encounter, especially as a young leader who probably has never had to deal with a situation like this before. Often times, in order to make peace and please others, we forget to either create boundaries or follow through with them. For example, if someone is raising their voice at you, using obscenities, or generally verbally attacking you, in effort to appease the person you might simply agree to whatever they want so that the situation resolves quickly. When doing this, you initiate multiple outcomes: 1) this person now knows that they simply have to push your buttons to get away with anything they like, 2) it is fairly likely this person will continue to act this way in order to get what they want, and 3) you are left with the feeling of having “lost” the conversation which might result in less authority over the situation long term.
In order to avoid these outcomes, a leader must set and follow through with boundaries. If someone does begin to escalate the situation, you might ask them to lower their voice or use more respectful language in order for the conversation to continue. This tells the other person that you are going to set the rules for how communication will be performed in your business. Let us say that this person does not head the warning and continues their abrasive behavior; that is when you would want to follow up and repeat your boundary, but this time include the consequence. So you might say something like, “I would be happy to continue this conversation at a lower volume and with respectful language, however if you continue this behavior I am going to ask that you leave my workspace until you are ready to be calm.” This is a respectful yet assertive way to make your boundaries clear to this other person.
Do not mimic bad behavior. In all, the most important element to de-escalating a critical situation is to remain calm and in complete control over your own behavior at all times. You do not own anyone else’s actions or reactions. You cannot control what feelings you might be having. But you do have the ability to maintain composure even when situations are emotionally triggering. The best way to ensure you will keep calm during stress is to take care of yourself on a regular basis. By eating healthy, exercising regularly, and finding ways to express your feelings, you can maintain a sense of balance in day-to-day life that will carry over to the more difficult situations.
When you find ways to maintain composure during a stressful interaction, you, in effect, control of the situation. As the leader, you get to make the final decisions for resolutions, and by doing so in a calm manner, you demonstrate to others that you can handle anything, no matter how difficult. Even if you have to go lock yourself in your car afterwards and cry for fifteen minutes, by at least presenting a solid and controlled demeanor you tell your team that insults and emotional manipulation will not work to make changes. In turn, this sets up the opportunity to exercise an open door policy where people can feel confident talking openly to you about difficult problems. Overall, by controlling yourself, you also partially control the outcome of the situation.
In the end, the three key steps to dealing with people who are acting difficult is to maintain confidence, set firm boundaries, and remain calm in the face of chaos. By employing these three strategies, and with practice, young leaders can see their capacity to handle escalated emotions increase immensely. This will prove to yourself, your reports, and your boss that you are a leader worth following.