The Presidency and Conflict Resolution: Critical Skills for Leaders

By: Grande Lum

Within three weeks, our country will decide the next President of the United States. Having trained and consulted in the world of mediation and negotiation for many years, I am keenly sensitive to how the President can either resolve international and domestic conflicts or worsen them.  Indeed, the President's strength and skillfulness in conflict resolution at home and abroad is among the most important factors contributing to successful leadership in our nation's highest office.  Thus, we must not underestimate the critical importance of a candidate's conflict resolution expertise and abilities. In this sense any leader can learn from past presidents on how to resolve conflict.

Recent events in Georgia highlight the fact that an important role of the President is as a negotiator and mediator.  The conventional wisdom in times of international strife has been “the tougher the image, the better”.  There have been many instances in the past of Presidents making the choice to be “tough” such as John F. Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis. 

And sometimes, the President chose a non-aggressive stance with an international crisis that has also worked effectively. Jimmy Carter has remarked that his approach to the Iranian hostage situation may have cost him the Oval Office, but every American came home safely.* His valuation of American lives trumped the strong desire to proceed with deadly force.

In this ever-increasing global society, we know that to maintain the confidence of its citizens, the Commander-In-Chief needs to be perceived as assertive in protecting our country's interests, though without alienating international partners and taking into account the complexities of inter-continental relationships. It is not effective to see enemies everywhere and only expect deviousness and manipulation from others. The qualities that make a president stellar as a conflict resolver contain the following four qualities:

BALANCE COMPETITION AND COLLABORATION

Both former Presidents Carter and Reagan provide an example of the first quality. A President must balance competition and collaboration to deal masterfully with conflict. One can be as strong in advocating diplomacy as one can be for defeating rival nations. An effective conflict resolver must be able to differentiate times to be assertive and times to be more accommodating. Ronald Reagan who memorably criticized Gorbachev, was very collegial in private negotiations and knew the difference between public rhetoric and one-on-one negotiations.

The difficulty of using diplomacy effectively is exacerbated by the zero-sum nature of national politics. The popular media's negative views of diplomacy encourage macho posturing by our leaders. One of Gerald Ford's favorite lines was “You can disagree without being disagreeable” in capturing his approach as a Republican President working with a Democratic Congress.  Yet too often recently, Presidents and politicians as a whole prefer carnage to collaboration leaving the country with no progress on issues like immigration. We as voters need to do a better job discerning who amongst the candidates knows when to fight and also when to compromise.

UTILIZE CONFLICT AS A PATHWAY RATHER THAN MERELY MANAGING IT

The second quality is utilizing conflict as a pathway rather than merely managing it.  One of the most famous decisions Harry S. Truman made was desegregating the military, even though he knew doing so might cost him his White House job.  He decisively altered the armed forces because he knew the government was a model for the rest of America and it was a page that needed to be turned. Short term conflict ensued in the country, but it accelerated the country forward in the long term.  This type of conflict resolution differentiates visionary leadership from crisis management where conflict is viewed less as a battle and more as an opportunity to enhance the system.

Similarly, President Roosevelt decided to create Social Security and the Welfare program. FDR was met with massive resistance and criticism from both the opposing party and the Supreme Court. FDR believed that these programs would bolster the US economy and through assertive negotiation and finesse he was able to overcome the criticisms and move forward with the programs.

UNDERSTAND CONFLICT FROM A NUMBER OF PERSPECTIVES AND APPLY THAT UNDERSTANDING WITH EFFECTIVE PROBLEM SOLVING

The third quality is the ability to understand conflict from a number of perspectives and apply that understanding in effective problem solving. The writer F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” A President must reach beyond giving mere lip service to opposing viewpoints. Abraham Lincoln famously included former political rivals in his cabinet and delegated significant authority to them. American‘s problems are exacerbated by habitually approaching them with narrow-minded attack. Conflict resolution at the presidential level requires courage and creativity rather than reverting to the path of least resistance.

BE COMFORTABLE IN HIS OR HER OWN SKIN

Lastly, a President must be comfortable in his or her own skin to handle conflict well. To balance one's own ego and realize one's need to be gracious requires understanding oneself and humility. A President needs to know one's own limits, and not overreach. To not get defensive when criticized strongly by others, one must be confident in one's own perspective. To heal others in arguably the most demanding job in the world, one must be well.

Conflict is not just about war and international diplomatic crises. Certainly the next President of the United States will have to manage international conflicts ranging from Iraq to China, Pakistan to Kenya, and domestic disputes from health care to race relations. Conflict is everywhere. Farooq Kathwari, CEO of Ethan Allan recently remarked on The Newshour with Jim Lehrer that “Globalization is the biggest conflict that we can think of. Environmental conflicts, trade conflicts, rule of law conflicts, expectations conflicts, all of those, to me, are part of globalization.” 

Whether you are President of the United States or a manager in a large organization, these conflict resolution skills will serve you well.