Heading into conflict; take OFF your armour ⚔

If we’ve been lucky enough to work together before, you’ll know that courage, connection, vulnerability and (the resulting) agility and trust, are the cornerstones of my practice. They’re how I shape the knowledge and skills I’m sharing with successful leaders and teams in all our work at LIFT.

In our recent free Braving the Conflict Arena webinar, my co-presenter, Dr Samantha Hardy, and I chatted a bit about vulnerability and conflict – even more specifically, vulnerability in conflict – and Sam made a quick 3 minute clip to share this essential tip with you.

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If you think vulnerability is weakness, this one’s for you

It’s one of the most counter-intuitive things I share when facilitating and coaching because almost everyone believes that being vulnerable is weakness, especially in conflict.

I mean…

The other party’s wrong. Obviously.

They’re totally closed off and won’t listen to my side of the issue anyway.

They’re going to be rude or dismissive and just make me angry. (I’m too exhausted and had enough of being angry but I can’t help reacting that way because they’re just so infuriating).

We think that going into a situation like this, without our armour on, without our protective (aggressive) words, less our undeniable facts, minus the closed or defensive body language, devoid of our excuses and rationale, recriminations or clever sarcastic quips, we’ll be going in weak and we’ll lose for sure.

Who wants to go into a fight, weak?

No, me either.

But is it really a fight?

Here’s what weakness really is in conflict:

• Moving AWAY — walking (or running!) away from conflict, being silent or just not turning up and totally avoiding it
• Moving AGAINST — using emotionally charged language and behaviour that’s argumentative, blaming even aggressive
• Moving TOWARDS — accommodating, pleasing, offering to take the blame, saying yes when you want to say no.

It’s all just happening to us. We have no control, even as we try desperately to control the situation.

We know it’s actually weakness, however cleverly rationalised in our minds, because when we leave the conflict, we feel less, not more. That’s our clue.

Who’d prefer to feel more?

Okay, prepare to have your mind blown, just a little.

The strength is in CHOOSING to be vulnerable.

Yes, you heard me right.

Despite the risk of attack. Despite the risk of being hurt.

In vulnerability, we CHOOSE to be open, to have an open heart, to speak from that open heart. To let the other side tell their story and actually listen to what they have to say..

And calmly, in that open generous mindset, we can move together towards resolution.

Sam and I know from years of experience  that it’s often not possible to make everyone happy but we also know that better outcomes are achieved in conflict when we choose to be vulnerable and respond with clear boundaries, generous mindset and NO armour.

When we do this, we leave feeling more, with our integrity intact.

^{Image: Thanks Wikimedia}

So, if I haven’t convinced you yet, perhaps think of this way: when you put on any form of armour (a set of chain mail, a spacesuit, one of those sumo wrestling outfits…) how uncomfortable is it, how easy is it to move, to do what you want to do? Exactly. Armour  limits our natural movement. It’s heavy, tiring and it gets in the way of creating connection.

Less connection = more conflict! So, think about consciously and courageously removing your armour before you go into your next conflict situation.

If you’d like to know more about armour that gets in the way of you being at your best plus a whole lot more about conflict, I’ve got something exciting to share with you very soon.