Fight or flight | Are senior leaders equipped to handle employee conflicts?

Being a business leader involves facing numerous challenges head-on and dealing with situations which may be uncomfortable.

Not least of these is employees who are butting heads and are having conflict with one another. These tensions can cause aftershocks that ripple through the workplace.

Research from Acas found that employee conflict costs UK businesses a total of £28.5 billion annually. Leadership development and coaching specialists FirstHuman are sharing their thoughts on how senior leaders must dig deep to address workplace conflict.

Richard Atherton, a partner at FirstHuman, said: "The foundational skill in tackling conflict is listening. If the leader can tune in to their internal monologue about the situation, they allow themselves to genuinely listen to people's grievances.