8 Tools for the Mediator Leader

Getting Started

The Mediator leader brings a distinctive mindset, operational style and hopefulness to a conflict. The Mediator is a marked contrast with the Demagogue and the Manager. Mediator leaders are not necessarily professionally trained as mediators. In this context, it means leaders who are seeking to bring disputing parties together by seeking bridges of understanding leading to an agreement. Therefore they must approach conflict in a specific way, and use a suite of skills that build relationships, trust and shared solutions.

The 8 tools used by the Mediator leader are outlined below. They are a brief summary from the book Leading Through Conflict: How Successful Leaders Transform Differences into Opportunities, by Mark Gerzon.

Integral Vision

When a conflict erupts the first thought is to try and calm things down and to fix it as quickly as possible. If you are involved as a leader you see people hurting, the congregation threatening to fracture, funding at risk – it seems to demand action. But the first thing to do is – nothing!

If no one’s life is in danger then take a step back. Unless you take time to understand the whole picture – in all its complexity and inter-related parts – then you will make an inappropriate intervention. The vision required of a Mediator leader is an integral vision – one that integrates the parts of a  conflict into a whole.

The skills required when using integral vision are to question, reject and test the validity of anything that seeks to put dividing walls between the parties. This includes rejecting labels, disrespecting the integrity of those with different opinions and nurturing the webs that connect us.

Systems Thinking

Once you are focused on the whole conflict you need to work at understanding how the parts are connected. So you will look at relationships and history between the parts. You will seek to understand the character, goals and values of the different parties to the conflict. The goal here is to think systemically!

The skills one uses here are probing questions that seek to unpack the relationships that give rise to the conflict. For example: Why does this church always push out its Pastor every 3 years? What is the personal and faith history of the people that are on opposite sides of support for a new building project? What is it in our church’s story that makes change difficult?

Think of integral vision as making sure that you have all the pieces of a jigsaw in front of you before you start. Then systems thinking is searching for which piece connects to the next.

Presence

More than our minds are required to solve a conflict. When you bring all your emotional, mental and spiritual resources to the midst of a conflict – this is presence. A leader needs to be very self-aware in order to be present in a conflict. So s/he needs to acknowledge their fears, anguish, hopes, anger, etc and deal with them.

The goal of presence is to be calm, available, attentive and capable of contributing to the transformation of the conflict.

Developing that ability requires the application of specific skills. Leaders address their emotional response to conflict and learn to be peaceful in it through a variety of strategies. Examples include solitude, coaching, prayer and spiritual direction, feedback from colleagues, intentional 360 reviews, meditation, playing music or creative art.

Calm, attentive persons who can bring the whole of themselves to their role as Mediator leader have presence. Presence is the master tool and makes it possible to use all the other tools. Because it is so very difficult to be this detached when one is very involved in a conflict it is wise to know when to bring in an external mediator.

Inquiry

Accurate and comprehensive data and analysis are essential for understanding. Without understanding it is impossible to transform a conflicted situation. It is amazing how many leaders go ahead with proposals on how to end a conflict before taking all the time necessary to understand it.

Mediator leaders value understanding and will not short circuit this stage. They also know that they do not have all the insights required in order to get a handle on the issues in a conflict. Therefore they seek the opinions of others – parties to the conflict, outside observers, professional sources of data. Mediator leaders understand that quality information is what makes it possible to find solutions that meet the needs of the parties.

Two skills go with this tool – questions and listening. Valuable inquiring questions begin with who, when, where, how, what, why, what else. Because understanding requires taking in information a Mediator leader is a good listener. So they always make sure that they “get it”. Often they will check back with a speaker to be certain that they understand the point. In the listening, they are understanding what is accurate and inaccurate; and monitoring spoken and unspoken communications.

These first four steps are preparation. Constructive, trust-building processes are essential to achieving transforming and positive outcomes to a conflict. Skip them at your own peril.

Conscious Conversation

Mediators know that people have choices about the way that they communicate. Their goal is to create a setting in which the parties can relate to each other is more constructive ways.

The skills involved include reminding, or perhaps educating, participants about the different ways they can use to engage in communications with each other. The range includes verbal brawling, debate, discussion, making presentations, negotiation, offering counsel, and silence. A negotiated Behavioral Covenant can be helpful preparation for dialogue in conflict situations.

By making it possible to have conscious conversations a Mediator leader is offering and nurturing alternative ways for the parties to engage. Thoughtless counter attacks and knee-jerk reactions are replaced with conscious conversations. Then out of these new ways comes deeper understanding and hence new options can emerge.

Dialogue

Dialogue is possible because the first five tools have been employed. The Mediator’s goal in using this tool is to get parties to connect across what divides them. Then from this comes a greater awareness of interests and a catalyst to reduce attachment to the original positions.

The skill required of the Mediator leader is to keep the parties focused on exploring their interests or goals. Usually, people want to focus on their “positions” or strategies that they believe will achieve their goals. Explore interests and not positions.

Interests based mediation or negotiation has been effectively used for many decades in local and international disputes. The classic and still relevant presentation of this approach is by Fisher and Ury – Getting to Yes. This book is an easy to read introduction to the goals and strategies of dialogue.

Bridging

Talk is not enough to resolve a conflict. The participants must do something quite different in relation to each other or in response to the presenting issues that gave rise to the dispute. However, these ideas will not come from the genius of one side or the other. Rather the bridge needs to be built from both sides so that it can meet in the middle.

A Mediator leader is like an engineer who has the drawings and believes in the possibility of constructing something wonderful. However it is the parties that must bring the materials.

The skills that are required are the things that make it possible for the materials to be delivered to the site. They are trust, social capital, respect, healing, empathy, understanding, courage, collaboration, caring, even love. The Mediator leader fosters, protects and encourages these things

When the bridging happens it can come suddenly and surprisingly. At play here is a “fundamental and mysterious truth: the energy between the parties must change in order for conflict to be transformed.” (Gerzon p. 57)

Innovation

Innovation is the breakthrough that now seems to provide an alternative to an ongoing conflict. While such an idea might have been imagined before, it could not be achieved until now.

The Mediator leader sustains the hope of the participants that around the next bend there may be a light at the end of the tunnel. Their skill is to help the parties recognise and celebrate the bridge they are building and to affirm and test the innovations that arise.

Equally as important is to make sure that there are very high levels of agreement with the proposed solution. This is more than some parties sitting silently and sullenly while others rejoice. It means testing that the stakeholders will promote the solutions among their constituencies and resource its implementation.

Afterword

Don’t pop the champagne corks just yet! Things sometimes unravel and great hopes are dashed. Your role as a leader at this time is to support the leaders who have seen an alternative vision for relationships in their community. You do this by reminding them of their agreements and how positive they felt. Coach them in how to carry the conversations forward into their constituencies. Maintain the hope and keep pointing out the path that has been created. Within Christian communities, this obviously includes the use of Scripture, prayer and other spiritual disciplines.

These are 8 tools that really work. They have been used successfully in many apparently intractable conflicts – large and small. Remain hopeful, grow your skills and then use them.