Leaders Can Agree to Disagree- It’s All About Perspective

I am part of a high level forum- a group of consultants who are very successful at what they do. Recently there was a post about books and reading. The original post was asking what our preference was, ‘old school’ or ‘new tech’. The answers were fascinating and there were a variety of preferences.

I have spent many years researching generations and years ago I did some work on gender differences in leadership. Many people try to discount that there are differences but I had to laugh at the noticeable preferences in the forum post that clearly pointed to both gender and generational.

A Baby Boomer male said he prefers old fashioned newspapers- reading them the way they were meant to be read. A Gen X female said she prefers electronic newspapers- real ones are too messy and cumbersome.

Neither is right and it is all about preference. We have to remember though that preferences ARE shaped by gender, generation and personality. What is really cool about noticing the preferences is that we can see that is okay to agree to disagree. Because it’s not personal!

It’s about personal preferences. I do know as a leader that the more I can deepen my understanding of different viewpoints based on different factors – culture is included here- the more I can respect other peoples positions.

One of the key components of successful conflict resolution is understanding each persons ‘position’ and ‘interests’. Position is ‘what’ people want and ‘interest’ is WHY they want it. The WHY has a whole bunch of psychology behind it and frankly the best leaders I know and work with have a breadth of psychological awareness that allows them to see and accept different perspectives and then ultimately help others bridge the disagreements to unified focus on action.