One of the most difficult situations that any line manager is likely to face will be conflict and challenges from staff. With the large and often disparate number of support staff roles in schools, many SBMs will hold responsibility for the efficient running of a variety of teams within their school. Add to the mix the many different personalities involved, and conflict and grievances are almost inevitable.
So, what strategies can you use to help teams work happily, harmoniously and cohesively, and what can you do when things do, inevitably, go wrong?
Consistently and coherently reminding all colleagues that the students are at the centre of everything they do provides an invaluable framework for difficult conversations
Where possible, the starting point should be a whole-school acknowledgement that all staff need to get on and work well together.
While human nature decrees there will be differences of opinions and clashes of personality at times, staff must be clear that while at school they are expected to work and conduct themselves in a professional manner.
Allowing conflict to fester between colleagues and within teams can lead to disgruntled, disaffected staff, inevitably impacting on performance.
Consistently and coherently reminding all colleagues that the students are at the centre of everything they do provides an invaluable framework for difficult conversations. Build these conversations into performance management too.
Treat the pupils as a lightning conductor – when storms look likely, remind everyone why they are there and be determined that potentially destructive lightning bolts will be swiftly sent to ground.
A key tool to keep staff on board is effective communication. When faced with important conversations, there are three routes we can take, according to Patterson et al1:
There are a few simple strategies that, when consistently applied, will help school leaders engage with their staff and ensure successful conversations – see the box below.
Because effective communication is essentially a two-way process, colleagues who refuse to participate in meaningful and positive dialogue can become destructive blockers to school improvement. Don’t ignore this.
Treat such colleagues in the same professional manner that you expect from them, and make your expectations clear. If there is conflict, you will need to reach a resolution. The trick is to make sure that you are prepared so you can deal with it calmly and positively.
Try to find out how this conflict has occurred and decide what resolution you can accept. Strong communication and interpersonal skills will contribute to your success. If a colleague persists in their intransigence, then you will probably need to tackle this through a more formal route, such as performance management, or even disciplinary procedures.
Recognising difficult or disruptive behaviour is the first step towards dealing with it. This may be colleagues being insensitive or disrespectful towards one another or their superiors, or being more overtly unpleasant, aggressive, bullying or abusive. Claiming others’ work as their own or criticising what others do are all symptoms of bad behaviour. Difficult behaviour may also manifest itself in colleagues refusing to do even basic tasks without a fuss or having to be asked more than once.
It is unhealthy challenge that you need to try to eliminate, not challenge itself
When checking for signs of trouble, remember that what might appear as a group of staff or team being difficult might be just one person rubbing the others up. Some individuals are so adept at this! It is important to deal with this promptly to mitigate potential damage to others in the team.
Talk to the individual concerned on their own. Calmly explain what you have witnessed and ask them to explain why it has happened – and listen to their response before reaching conclusions. Reiterate to them your expectations of professional practice and the importance to the whole school that the team works effectively together for the benefit of the students.
Moving forwards, regular team meetings based on carefully set agendas should help engender better team cohesion.
Once you acknowledge that there is bad behaviour within the workforce, your next step should be to investigate the cause. There may be any number of reasons so try starting by being introspective. What have you or the school done – or failed to do?
Providing all staff with effective and consistently applied induction and performance management sets down your expectations from the start and helps nip any problems in the bud. So, also, does a clear set of person specifications included with job descriptions.
Communicating key information to staff (including inviting them to meetings where appropriate) helps motivate them and give them a sense of belonging. Emails can be a cause of dissent, not only because messages can be misinterpreted, but because sending an email instead of speaking to your colleague face to face may give the impression that you are not interested in them or their work. Sometimes we just turn a blind eye to challenges from staff because we are too busy or reluctant to deal with them, leaving them to escalate unchecked.
A useful, and simple-to-use tool to drill down to the real cause of a problem is ‘5 whys’. This investigates the cause and effect of a problem, allowing you to deal with the root cause rather than something that appears on the surface. When given a response to a question simply keep asking ‘why?’ until you reach the root cause (generally five whys). The box below gives an example.
Yet again, one of your colleagues has let you down by leaving important data off the management information system (MIS). This has resulted in reports being incomplete and staff complaining to you. You meet with the administrator and ask why she has failed, again, to complete this essential task:
Cause: Proper training wasn’t given to a new member of staff
Effect: Deadlines are being missed for important reports
Impact: The SBM must rigorously apply a bespoke induction and training programme for all staff starting in new positions.
As many challenges come from staff unhappy with change, forcefield analysis is a useful tool when contemplating change – see the box below. Use this to analyse the forces for and against proposed change to then determine whether the change is viable or not. By analysing forces for and against, you can work to strengthen those in favour and decide how to mitigate those that are against.
You need a blank sheet of paper. Turn it to landscape and divide into three columns. In the central column write a brief description of the change proposal. In the left column draw up a list of forces for change. In the right column, list forces against. These forces might be individual (or groups of) staff. They may be financial or health and safety considerations; governors; local authority; other stakeholders and so on.
To take this a step further, highlight the strongest forces (for and against) in bold, red or underlined – whatever makes them stand out clearly.
Now decide whether, on balance, this is a viable proposal. If the change must go ahead, this analysis will warn you of forces likely to be against it and prepare you for action. By highlighting the strongest forces you can prioritise these actions.
| Forces for change | Description of change proposal | Forces against change |
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As prevention is invariably better than cure, SBMs will benefit from investing time working with their teams. Focus particularly on agreeing a common set of values, aims and objectives so that everyone understands their role, their commitment to the team and their contribution to the whole school. Investing time in your teams helps to create better understanding and cohesion.
Keep the team informed of any new strategies happening in the school, even if they don’t obviously impact on the team. Especially, keep team members informed of anything happening within the team and facilitate discussion about how tasks are progressing. When projects and/or tasks are completed, encourage reflection on the lessons learned. Striving for, and celebrating, improvement helps team members to enjoy a more continual sense of success, professional development and team cohesion.
Try not to take resistance personally, but do consider whether you have done everything possible to avoid it
It is unhealthy challenge that you need to try to eliminate, not challenge itself. A good leader will feel sufficiently secure to accept challenge and healthy debate. We like to be right, but an important skill is to be able to let go of the need to always be right.
If others challenge your thinking or deeds, listen to their argument and be prepared to accept an alternative or consensus approach if appropriate. Your colleagues may know better than you, so it is important to acknowledge this.
At the very least, find something in their argument that you can agree with – people like to be listened to (and it takes the wind out of the sails of an angry challenge): ‘When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but creatures of emotion.’3
Teams that work openly and collaboratively – challenging each other, sharing ideas and solutions, encouraging review and improvement – are the healthy, high-morale, high-performing teams.
The box below sums up key aspects of effective team development. The case study below offers an example of how this can work well in practice.
Objectives The objectives of the team should be clearly understood by all members
Procedure All team members should be involved in making important decisions
Process All team members should be clear about what has to be done, by whom, by when, with what resources
Review The team should review its work regularly as part of the development process4
As SBM in a large secondary school, I wanted to introduce support-staff performance management. Because of their numbers and diversity of roles, this represented a considerable commitment and one that I recognised I was ill-equipped for. Not only did I not have the time, but I certainly didn’t have the range of expertise to effectively performance manage this variety of specialist roles. If it went wrong, I could disaffect a considerable workforce.
I conducted a strategic analysis of the support-staff structure, and developed a middle-leadership framework, with discrete support-staff team leaders providing knowledgeable and targeted leadership. An unexpected benefit was that the middle leaders used this framework to work together (initially through regular support-staff middle leadership meetings). Soon colleagues who had previously misunderstood, even resented, each other were working harmoniously within a whole-school context.
Taking on a new role as team leader can bring its own challenges, especially if this is a newly-created position or internal promotion. If you are new to the school, take your time to get to know your colleagues – and for them to know you. From the outset, assume your leadership role – colleagues need to see you as their leader from the start.
Don’t make sweeping decisions or changes too soon, unless absolutely necessary. Instead, investigate with an open mind, and don’t assume everything you hear is true! Try not to take resistance personally, but do consider whether you have done everything possible to avoid it. It is natural to fear change and, as their new leader, you represent a significant change to those you line manage. So, give them time to get used to you. You cannot please everyone and, as a leader, you cannot be friends with everyone either.
Where a member of staff acts in a way sufficiently outside the boundaries of acceptable behaviour, you will need recourse to the disciplinary policy
If yours is an internal promotion then you will have the benefit that you all know each other. However, some staff may challenge your new authority. This is their problem – don’t make it yours. Your job is to lead the team to be the best it can be. Assume your new role and walk the walk. If colleagues challenge this, then you will have to talk to them, individually, and reiterate that this is your leadership role and with that comes responsibility. As you take your role seriously, you act professionally and expect the same from them.
The box below gives a case example of handling challenge when taking on a leadership role in a new school, while the case example in the box after gives one strategy for dealing with challenge when promoted to leader within your existing team.
I was asked to work with a recently restructured school workforce. The school had introduced a new teaching-assistant team leader, to provide leadership and support for the teaching assistants. The rationale had been clearly shared with all involved.
So it was disappointing that once the newly-appointed team leader was in post, she encountered significant, escalating, challenge to her authority from team members. Superficially, the whole team was against her.
It was important to deal with this swiftly, as the team was under tension and performing less effectively as a result. We agreed the team leader would meet with each teaching assistant individually. The reason given was so the team leader could get to know them better. But what came out of it was that most of the individuals, away from the team, disclosed deep unhappiness with the friction within their ranks. Their leader didn’t ask them where this friction came from. That became very clear once she had met with them all.
Her next step was to establish regular team meetings and work with the team to agree shared values, aims and objectives. These meetings helped her to establish a more visible team leadership role as well as clearly stating (and agreeing) her expectations for the team moving forwards. The ‘challengers’ recognised their positions were marginalised and soon found other jobs. The team is now much happier and performing as it should.
An office manager I know has recently been internally promoted to a new leadership position. Although her team appeared to work well, they hadn’t completely accepted her as their leader. The challenge to her authority largely manifested itself by persistent complaints that tasks the team were given were ‘not my job’.
The persistent and petty nature of this was wearing her down, so she introduced a ‘not-my-job’ box. She used an old cardboard box, covered it with smart wallpaper, and labelled it ‘not my job’. Without a word, she put this in the office. She didn’t say what she would do with anything put in the box. That was three months ago. Since then, no-one has complained about tasks not being theirs, nor has anything appeared in the box!
All schools have policies and procedures in place to support formal disciplinary and grievance actions, and all staff should be made aware of these. These procedures will normally be viewed as a ‘last resort’, as it is generally better to resolve disaffection, challenge or conflict informally. The fallout from formal proceedings can act as a ripple effect, impacting on otherwise innocent staff. (Download the staff discipline, conduct, and grievance procedure document.)
But sometimes things do go wrong and it is to these policies that you will need to turn. Where these policies come unstuck is generally where those using them, including SBMs, have no prior understanding of their framework until they have recourse to them. So make yourself familiar with them now.
The grievance procedure should allow for, and encourage, staff to vent any grievance at an early stage, in a way that is safe and non-confrontational. This gives you the opportunity to nip it in the bud thus avoiding things getting out of hand.
Fostering an open-door policy also helps, but does not mean allowing regular, unnecessary interruptions. Colleagues should make an appointment to discuss important (non-urgent) issues with you. An open-door policy should also allow staff to come and see you when they have something troubling them, but which they don’t feel warrants a formal conversation. As Colin Powell (Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff 1989-93) observed: ‘The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded that you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.’5
If a member of staff decides to take a formal grievance against another colleague, then the school will need to work strictly within the grievance policy framework, adhering precisely to prescribed timescales and actions.
Feeling confident in your leadership role will help you to accept challenge when it is appropriate, and recognise when it is not
Where a member of staff acts in a way sufficiently outside the boundaries of acceptable behaviour, you will need recourse to the disciplinary policy. The disciplinary procedure is concerned with handling allegations of misconduct and gross misconduct. Where disciplinary allegations appear to be linked to sickness (including work-related stress), the ill-health procedure may be appropriate. Where there is concern about competence or poor performance, the capability procedure should be used. Again, you must adhere to prescribed timescales and actions to protect the integrity of the process.
Feeling confident in your leadership role will help you to accept challenge when it is appropriate, and recognise when it is not. Disrespectful and disruptive challenge is never acceptable and potential damage must be mitigated promptly. Difficulties with staff can have a negative impact on the whole team, indeed, the whole school, derailing what others work so hard to achieve.
Some colleagues just seem to have that uncanny knack of rubbing others up the wrong way, causing disruption at every turn. An important part of line management is not only recognising that this is happening, but dealing with it appropriately with little, or no, collateral damage. To do this successfully, you need to understand the root cause of any conflict, take time to prepare for action, then take the action most appropriate for the situation. the box below gives outlines action to take, and what to avoid, when managing difficult staff.
Dealing with conflict is never easy, but colleagues will respect you less if you don’t try. Reflect on what works well – and what less so – and look forward to learning from these experiences. Most importantly, remember that when you get it right, the students will benefit from happier, more harmonious and high-performing staff working together to achieve the very best for them.
| Do | Don’t |
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