Even the most talented teams or workgroups can be undone by their inability to deal properly with internal conflicts. As an interviewer, once I’ve determined that you have the technical skills to the job, I’ll be interested in understanding how you react to and deal with conflict situations. This will provide insights for how you’ll work with me as a supervisor and how you’ll work with your peers. So, as you prepare for interviews, be ready for an open-ended question such as “Tell me about a conflict you’ve experienced with a supervisor, and another you’ve experienced with a peer.”
Parts of your stories will talk about issues and outcomes, which are useful context, but the interviewer doesn’t necessarily care about those specifics, instead they care about the following details and may ask about them if you don’t share them on your own.
1. How was the issue brought to the table? Sometimes conflicts occur with one side not even being aware there was an issue, sometimes they occur with collateral damage after reaching a boiling point. Different behaviors can be expected depending on how the conflict arose.
2. What emotions were displayed by each side during the conflict? Often, you’ll begin display the emotional state you were in when talking about the event, which can be just as telling as your words.
3. Was each side satisfied with the outcome? If uncertainty exists regarding the satisfaction of either side, then the conflict probably wasn’t resolved, which will lead to additional questions by the interviewer regarding why you let that happen.
4. Did the issue repeat? A repeat of the same issue is a tell-tale sign that resolution never occurred, and both sides own some blame for that happening.
In conflict situations, people display 3 general types of behaviors: passive, aggressive, and assertive. If you weren’t the one who brought the issue to light, weren’t satisfied with the outcome, and let the issue repeat, you probably have a tendency to behave too passively. If you brought the issue to light by demonstrating anger and don’t know or care if the other side was satisfied with the outcome, you probably have a tendency toward aggression. In the “sweet spot” are assertive behaviors. If behaving assertively, you likely brought the issue to light while keeping your emotions under control, both sides were satisfied with the outcome, and the issue never repeated. Ideally this is a consistent picture when talking through the example with your boss and peer. Behaving passively with your boss, then aggressively with a peer or subordinate is not a recipe for good teaming and leadership.
When preparing your examples, give thought to the differences between healthy and unhealthy conflict. Healthy conflict, those examples that lead to improvement, common understanding, and learning, are great to share. Conflicts that start unhealthy, but then turn healthy and lead to similar outcomes through the use of your strong interpersonal skills are also great. Stay away from unhealthy conflicts that stay unhealthy and lead to avoidance instead of a proper resolution. These examples rarely offer valuable insights that will convince a manager to hire you. You may earn sympathy, but not a job offer.
There’s a fine line to walk here (and many interviewers love to see how you handle those fine lines). It’s possible that you’ve worked with dysfunctional people, such a boss who never treated you fairly or a peer who took every opportunity to undermine you. If you fixate on these individuals when discussing workplace conflict, remember that the interviewer has never met these people and will have to make a judgement call on whether the problem was them, or if the problem is you. That uncertainty may be enough reason for an interviewer to refrain from making you an offer.