Leader’s Mood Impact on Conflict Resolution Research Paper

Introduction

The majority of activities in a work environment occur within the context of a team. Team leaders’ emotions are contagious and influence how team members feel and their resulting performance (Lyons, 2014). Studying the effect of a leader’s emotions and how they affect team performance could help us understand how to utilize the leadership role to improve team performance. Conflict resolution in the workplace has already been extensively studied by various scholars such as Van Kleef (2009), Myatt (2012), and others. Yet, there is a lack of research on the impact of a leader’s inner conflict on a team. Therefore, this study aims to answer how a leader’s inner conflict affects a team members’ professional and personal conflict resolution on a team level.

The relationships and interactions between people identify their behaviors and feelings. The modern corporate environment strongly relies on leadership and teamwork, so there is an increased responsibility put on leaders for guiding a team towards the achievement of the set goals while preserving uplifting attitudes, respect, and effective communication among employees. According to Sy, Côtè, and Saavedra (2005), a leader’s positive attitudes tend to increase the mood of separate employees as well as the impact of a team’s overall performance.

The research conducted by Johnson (2009) concluded that the way a leader behaves at work is directly related to a team’s productivity and spirit; the researcher called such a relationship the “emotional contagion” (p. 814). Thus, it is commonly accepted that a team’s attitudes positively correlate with the mood of their leader.

There are three basic assumptions as to why leaders play such a defining role in establishing positive attitudes within a team. First, a leader possesses a high level of authority over other employees. Second, a leader serves as a role model, being an example of how workers should behave and treat each other. Third, team members depend on leaders to a large extent (Volmer, 2012). This means that the effectiveness of employees’ performance is primarily driven by a leader.

Emotional contagiousness is an integral part of any team. According to the study initiated by Volmer (2012), previous research on the issue has found that mood dramatically impacts the way leaders act and subsequently affect employees. For instance, Sy et al. (2005) stated that a positive mood is transmitted to followers. Another example was provided in the research by Lewis (2000) that found that employees of a lower rank are much more susceptible to the mood exhibited by workers of a higher rank.

By following this logic and applying it to a directly opposite context, it can be hypothesized that the negative mood of a leader will subsequently lead to a bad mood among followers. This hypothesis appeared from the idea of mood contagion, an unconscious transfer of mood between individuals interacting within a given environment (Neumann & Strack, 2000). Mood contagion among employees is an expected phenomenon since individuals in a working environment follow similar processes of socialization, are exposed to similar processes, perform identical tasks, and are required to comply with the established norms (George, 1996).

If one is to draw parallels between the assumption of mood contagion and its effect on the overall performance of a team, a second hypothesis can be made: if a leader is experiencing an inner conflict, there is a high probability that conflict resolution skills will also be greatly undermined (Tee & Ashkanasy, 2006). Therefore, further research will focus on exploring the two hypotheses to evaluate the importance of a leader’s inner conflict in the context of a team.

Impact of a Leader’s Mood on the Overall Performance of the Team

Mood contagiousness has been directly linked to a wide variety of employees’ outcomes that relate to performance. According to the findings of the studies by Amabile, Barsade, and Mueller (2005); Baas, DeDreu, and Nijstad (2008), a positive leader’s mood can facilitate helping behavior in a team, encourage creativity and successful negotiations, and improve the overall occupational performance.

If a leader exhibits a positive mood, an expectation of positive personal relationships within a team occurs, thus enhancing employees’ self-efficacy. Those leaders that do not shy away from showing their positive attitudes towards work are well-liked by their followers who feel motivated and inspired by their leader. This assertion is supported by empirical research; for example, George (1996) concluded that the uplifted mood of a leader directly influences the performance of a team with regards to sales operations. Chi, Chung, and Tsai (2011) came to a similar conclusion and stated that the more positive the mood of a leader is, the higher the chance of employees’ exhibiting high-performance indicators, which implies that the negative attitude of a leader can subsequently translate into poor performance of a team.

The tendency of leaders to impact the mood of their team can be explained by the social functional approach of emotion (Van Kleef, 2009). This approach implies that individuals employ the affective states of other people in the form of information with regards to specific attitudes, goals, and intentions that in turn impact the subsequent thoughts and actions. According to Van Kleef (2009), the positive attitude of a leader signals the team members that the team is doing well and is on the right track towards achieving the set goals.

Therefore, a team with a leader that has a positive mood is much more likely to exhibit “high potency scores” (Volmer, 2012, p. 207) in comparison with teams in which the leader is dealing with negative mood or emotional problems (for example, an inner conflict). Furthermore, when employees feel competent in their business performance, the result is the ability to better solve conflicts within a team. This means that the internal conflict of a leader will not facilitate the team’s ability to solve external conflicts. While it can be concluded that the overall positive mood exhibited by a leader beneficially impacts the overall performance of the team and the achievement of the established goals, the correlation between a leader’s ‘inner conflict’ and conflict resolution skills in a team requires further research.

When exploring the relationship between the impact of a leader’s mood on the attitudes and the performance of the followers, it is worth briefly discuss the phenomenon of goal commitment. According to Lau (2012), goal commitment implies that employees of a team are motivated enough to accomplish the established goals. Thus, workers that operate together under the supervision of a leader with a positive attitude are much more likely to use the energy they have and apply it to the accomplishment of the team task because they feel encouraged and inspired by the leader. If a leader is in a positive mood, there is a high chance that he or she will predominantly focus on the positive aspects of tasks the team performs and will try to establish a pleasant atmosphere in a team to influence the commitment of a team directly.

The concept of goal commitment also directly influences the employees’ job satisfaction, which has a tendency to increase the overall performance of the team as well as facilitate the achievement of the established objectives. According to Lau (2012), job satisfaction is defined as a “collection of feelings that an individual holds towards his or her job” (p. 3). To be more specific, job satisfaction is a positive perception of one’s position in the workplace. Thus, a person satisfied with his or her job is much more likely to invest time into achieving the established objectives and is less likely to look for a job outside of the team (Lau, 2012). This means that a positive environment in a team benefits the attitudes within the team and facilitates goal orientation and job satisfaction.

A Leader as a Mediator of Relationships Within Teams

A leader that exhibits a positive mood and inspires a team to achieve the set objectives has more effect on the mood of a group. It is important to investigate how a leader can become a mediator of the relationships within a team and subsequently impact the team’s outcomes. Leaders should play a role of a mediator because the modern business environment requires them to “wear many hats” (Kettenhofen, 2014). Furthermore, the role of a conflict mediator is associated with the welfare of a team as a separate unit since negative relationships in a team may create some significant barriers to accomplishing the set goals. Whether a conflict occurs between two team members or between groups of employees that compete for a ‘place under the sun,’ a leader should step in and play the key role in resolving the misunderstanding.

The role of a leader as a mediator is made up of three key components: staying neutral in certain situations, collecting and analyzing available data, and making a final decision. Staying neutral is one of the main qualities of a successful conflict mediator. Taking the one side in a conflict may result in a biased decision and spark further conflicts. Because of this, positive and effective leaders will make sure that he or she does not choose one side over another and acts in such a way that would facilitate the resolution of the conflict by the conflicting parties themselves. Second, an effective leader-mediator should go into an extra effort to gather and analyze the available facts in order to make the fairest decision possible.

It is crucial for a leader to get an understanding of the competing personalities and their goals that contribute to the conflict. In some situations, conflicts arise when the parties just don’t like or respect each other, or the goals of one conflicting party may be contrary to the objectives of another (Kettenhofen, 2014). Therefore, collecting information about the conflict and analyzing the multifacetedness of the approaches will be beneficial for a leader to mediate the process of conflict resolution between the competing parties. Lastly, the final aspect of the leader’s mediating role is making a decision with regards to how a conflict could be resolved.

When it comes to making a decision, it is important to make the fairest judgment, taking into account the opinions of the parties involved. For instance, according to the findings of the research by Fransen et al. (2014), high-quality athlete leaders do affect not only the self-efficacy of the team but also influence the confidence of the team’s coach. Because coaches tend to increase their confidence when a leader of the team has a positive attitude towards the outcomes of a game (match), the overall performance of all team members tends to increase. Such findings coincide with the results of the research conducted by Watson, Chemers, and Preiser (2001), who found that effective team leaders could encourage the creation of upward spirals and increased collective efficacy with the help of persuasion, motivation, and modeling of confident behaviors.

Inner Conflicts in Leaders

Suppression of emotions and acting as if there is no conflict can never lead to positive results. Sooner or later, an individual understands that the conflict is inevitable and that the suppression of thoughts and feelings will never bring any good for the situation. Despite the fact that many people think of a conflict as a misunderstanding between two or more individuals, a conflict can also be internal, meaning that a person is in a conflict with himself or herself.

This is called an ‘inner conflict’ (Adams, 2016). Inner conflicts occur when an individual experiences a contradiction when making a specific decision; usually, there is a ‘battle’ between staying true to oneself and doing what is right (for example, what is right for the team). For example, when it comes to leaders of companies, they are often faced with an inner conflict of pursuing a career and bringing revenue for a team as opposed to being able to stay true to their beliefs and ideas. More often than not, it is best to do what feels right internally in order not to deal with further psychological dilemmas in the future; however, it can depend on a situation.

There are three ways in which effective leaders can deal with inner conflicts without causing harm to a team in which they are in charge. First and most importantly, being honest is the main step at overcoming an inner conflict. Many leaders choose to cover up the fact that something is going on in fear of seeming weak or incapable of managing a team (Singh, 2015). Moreover, some leaders are afraid of sparking a conflict within a team since negative attitudes or inconsistencies in behavior tend to be ‘contagious’ (Sy et al., 2005).

According to the article by Singh (2015), effective leaders are usually brutally honest about their experiences because they believe in transparency in the workplace. Second, when dealing with inner conflicts, a leader respects them. While being honest about the inner conflict is one thing, respecting it and acknowledging its importance is another. A leader who knows that a person should not be blamed for experiencing an inner conflict tends to deal better with it.

Great leaders understand that everyone has weaknesses, and an inner conflict is just a temporary challenge that one has to overcome. In the book The Chimp Paradox, Peters (2012) skillfully explained that in order for a leader to diminish an inner conflict in himself or herself, it is crucial to respect it and understand its origins. By ‘listening to the story of the inner-conflict,’ one can develop the confidence required for making a long-term change.

The same way a sales associate cannot make a sale to a client without gaining respect, a person cannot overcome any internal conflicts without understanding their origins or recognizing that nobody is perfect. Lastly, dealing with an inner conflict is also a matter of seeking support. Since there are usually two conflicting parties that compete with each other in an inner conflict, looking for support and advice from other people is one of the key methods of overcoming any internal psychological challenges.

Benefits and Limitations of Conflicts in the Workplace

Depending on the way they are managed, conflicts in the workplace can have both positive and negative outcomes. First, the conflict of competition can be regarded as both negative and positive when applied to different situations (Root, n.d.). For example, positive conflict is two employees who are similar in the productivity indicators trying to outperform each other in reaching the established goals. Bad feelings associated with healthy competition can potentially increase performance and facilitate change for the better in a team. A leader should encourage such competition and inspire high productivity (Root, n.d.). On the other hand, competition between the two highest and the lowest-performing employees cannot be considered particularly healthy since it can cause frustration.

No matter how much benefit conflicts bring to a team, there are still some limitations associated with conflicts that companies may experience. For example, personal conflicts between employees that do not respect or like each other do nothing for spurring creativity and increasing the overall performance. In this case, a leader must step in and help workers resolve the conflict as well as remind them that there is no place for personal ‘battles’ in a team.

Moreover, there could also be an option for the human resources department to document the personal conflict among employees to prevent it from occurring in the future. Thus, being able to differentiate between positive and negative conflicts in a team is a trait that many leaders should possess for optimizing companies’ performance and making sure that the team is committed to the achievement of the established goals.

Connection Between a Leader’s Inner Conflict and Conflict Resolution in a Team

The attitudes of a leader have a direct impact on the mood of the team and can subsequently influence the overall performance, job satisfaction, and orientation towards an established goal. The conflicts within or between teams could create barriers for a team and prevent it from accomplishing the goals set by the management. By following this logic, it can be asserted that an inner conflict experienced by a leader will rarely bring positive results when it comes to conflict resolution. Since there is a lack of research dedicated to the correlation between conflict resolution in a team and inner conflict, this section will focus specifically on finding the connection.

Both internal and external conflicts are parts of human nature. A conflict is inevitable, whether at home or in the office, and it can negatively impact moods or the team performance (Kazimoto, 2013). The inner conflicts occur on a regular basis, so they have an unintended impact. Since the role of a leader in the definition and communication of the team’s long-term vision, the resolution of an inner conflict is essential for being able to support employees, overcoming the limitations, and exploiting new opportunities. This means that an unresolved inner conflict experienced by a leader will prevent him or her from helping employees resolve conflicts.

The inner conflicts can undermine leadership skills, especially when leaders choose to hide their psychological issues from employees. According to Lyons (2014), a leader that exhibits high levels of emotional intelligence will encourage the same levels of emotional intelligence among employees. It is important to note that some conflicts in a team can be positive in the sense that they will provide employees with an opportunity to learn how to identify points of weaknesses for the team as well as teach them how to employ conflict resolution practices in a variety of situations. Thus, if a leader cannot resolve an inner conflict, the employees will not be able to manage the pressure of eliminating the problem themselves.

Due to the fact that the negative mood exhibited by a leader causes negative attitudes among employees and because inner conflicts usually evoke a negative mood, there is a direct connection between the process of conflict resolution in a team and the inner conflict experienced by a leader (Myatt, 2012). Since leadership and conflicts are concepts that go hand in hand, a person holding a leadership role who will fail to resolve the conflict in a productive manner should not be considered an effective leader.

Although the correlation between inner conflicts in leaders and conflict resolution within teams has not received any significant attention from researchers, the importance of investigating such a connection should not be overlooked. Both inner conflicts and conflicts within teams can bring either positive or negative results. By understanding whether an inner conflict in a leader limits the process of conflict resolution in a team, it will be possible to determine how leaders should act in different situations in order to facilitate development and create a positive work environment.

The review of literature may not be the most effective method for finding a correlation between inner conflicts and conflict resolution practices. Therefore, a qualitative study should be designed and involve a study sample of leaders that were dealing with inner conflicts and saw whether their emotional state affected conflict resolution in teams. Getting a thorough understanding of the relationships between a leader and the team will always facilitate effective interactions, the promotion of a trusting and comfortable environment, and boosting of employees’ motivation. It is important for a leader to acknowledge his or her mental state, mood, goals, and objectives in order for the positive to transfer to employees and prevent negative from harming the undermining the business processes.

No team can exist independently as it is inevitably connected with a leader. The degree of dependence of team members on each other and a leader, in particular, may affect potential conflicts and rivalries in the course of accomplishing their goals. In case this situation occurs in properly subordinate teams that transmit their results to the general purpose, the likelihood of a conflict can be considered as rather a low one (Watson, Chemers, & Preiser, 2001).

Nevertheless, the possibility of conflict is inherently higher in situations of interdependence when all the team members depend on each other in the planning and execution of complex work, and a leader plays a crucial role. In this connection, a leader’s inner conflict can manifest itself in the decreased level of a group’s productivity.

The mutual dependence and the possibility of conflict in intergroup relationships may lead to the higher occurrence of groupthink and stereotypes, which are then difficult to change or eliminate. It can be difficult for a team leader to manage such trends because of the need to develop links between his or her own personality and others. In addition to the coordination role within their teams, leaders should also act in the role of a diplomat, integrating conflicts within a team with those that appear inside him or her. In a sense, they need to bifurcate: worry about the interests and concerns of both their own and a team member (Neumann & Strack, 2000).

Some leaders tend to perceive it as a source of conflict and ambiguity, thus deepening the conflict and losing a chance to address it timely. It should be emphasized that the achievement of mutually beneficial and long-term agreements between himself or herself and a team often requires the implementation of elements of a deal, a compromise, or mutual concessions. The extent to which all team members are required to maintain the overall cohesiveness in relations with a leader identifies a complex picture of formal and informal connections and relations within a team.

A team can successfully resolve its internal conflicts and work in relative harmony within a team unless the achievement of its goals is violated due to the inner conflict of a leader. This aspect is an essential factor in the effectiveness of a team and an integral part of the working culture that ensures a comfortable job environment (Neumann & Strack, 2000). Even the most viable and enterprising team eventually starts to work less if the atmosphere in which it was grown-up no longer feeds team members, leaving no place for further promotion as well as professional and personal development. Thus, a leader can influence the established ways of performance in a team, for instance, in the following areas: the expectations of employees and the capability of change implementation.

In particular, the expectations of team members can be critical to its success and future development. Sometimes complicated issues arise when those expectations of a team and a leader turn out to be different due to the inner conflict of the latter (George, 1996). It can even lead to the fact that a team will consider following another leader, thus proceeding in the other way. It can occur, besides, as a result of overwriting the different expectations.

The second area relates to the ever-changing environment that needs to be taken into account while resolving conflicts in a team (George, 1996). A leader is to have knowledge and skills to use the changing situations and circumstances while having the inner conflict. These changes may be associated with changes in social, environmental, financial, or business sectors that directly or indirectly affect the work of a team. Among the core strategies to identify the impact of this kind of conflict, there can be questioning, making connections, comparing facts, and the ability to interpret the strategic intent of employees in a team.

In many respects, the quality required to manage internal relations is close to those required for the analysis and judgments rather than for the practical action. The conflict resolution within a team is dependent on correct and definite trends that may indicate future changes in the internal environment. An essential role here belongs to the common combination of caution and intuition based on awareness. A leader has the inner conflict that affects the team not only by his or her intellectual abilities and skills but also by the ability to “read the situation,” a fresh look at the routine information, and creative use of the internal opportunities (Van Kleef, 2009).

The encouragement of positive attitudes in a workplace is also a subject matter of self-management with regard to leaders. In spite of the effectiveness with which leaders manage their inner conflicts, it is important to stress that they are usually under increased pressure to prioritize, make decisions, and be accountable for their actions (The Complete Leader, 2016), and the processes of self-management with regards to inner conflicts may stop leaders from effectively performing their duties.

Not only does self-management for leaders involves physical and mental wellbeing, but also direct interactions with employees that can instantly ‘catch’ the mood of their leader. This puts leaders in a position of tremendous responsibility; therefore, there is nothing as important as preserving the emotional health of the leader in order for the team’s effectiveness to stay at the highest levels.

Conclusion

The phenomenon of mood contagion in the workplace has been extensively researched in the scientific literature. It has been found that a leader of a team has a direct influence on his or her followers, and it is very common for the good mood to transfer to employees and facilitate job satisfaction as well as for the bad mood to decrease the overall performance of the team. It was particularly important to discuss the impact of a leader’s group on the effectiveness of a team with regard to the achievement of the set objectives. As evidenced by the summary and analysis of the available research on the topic, team effectiveness is directly linked to the attitudes of the leader, his or her mood as well as the motivation to benefit the team.

Concepts of conflict between team members as well as the practices of conflict resolution have been incorporated into the research to find connections between them and inner conflicts experienced by leaders. Inner conflicts were defined as contradictions between what is right for a team and what fits the personal interest of a leader. Inner conflicts evoke feelings of frustration and distress if not managed correctly, so it is possible for them to negatively influence the decision-making with regards to conflicts between employees.

Overall, the research has shown that leaders should employ effective self-management strategies to overcome inner conflicts and possess conflict resolution skills to help employees overcome conflicts within a team. Since mood is easily transferred from a leader to followers, it is crucial to understand the importance of overcoming inner conflicts in order to facilitate better conflict resolution practices in a team.

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