Conflict Management in School Leadership

Conflict is unavoidable in school leadership, but how leaders respond to it can shape the culture and effectiveness of an entire district.

In this episode of the OSBA Forum, host Mark Bobo talks with Sara Clark and Kristi Robbins about the challenges school boards and district leaders face regarding conflict, communication and governance. 

The conversation explores:

•  Why conflict is increasing in some districts. 
•  Leadership transitions and board dynamics. 
•  Communication breakdowns and difficult conversations. 
•  Emotional intelligence in governance. 
•  Community expectations and political pressures. 
•  Strategies for strengthening trust and professionalism. 

The OSBA Forum features conversations on the issues impacting Ohio’s public schools and the leaders who serve them.

00:00 Introduction
 00:22 Conflict Isn’t Always Negative
 00:47 Meet Sara Clark and Kristi Robbins
 01:19 Why Conflict Is Increasing in School Districts
 01:43 New Board Members and Leadership Transitions
 02:06 Roles, Communication and Difficult Conversations
 02:40 Budget Challenges and Community Pressure
 03:05 Political Polarization and Board Dynamics
 03:38 Emotional Intelligence During Conflict
 04:25 Early Warning Signs of Governance Problems
 05:12 Building Trust Within Leadership Teams
 06:04 Productive Communication Strategies
 07:01 Managing Public Pressure and Expectations
 08:10 Advice for Board Members Facing Conflict
 09:02 Final Thoughts on Leadership and Governance

For more resources, training and advocacy updates from the Ohio School Boards Association, visit ohioschoolboards.org.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

The following program is a presentation of the Ohio School Boards Association.

SPEAKER_00 0:18

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the OSBA Forum. Today's conversation focuses on a topic that every board member and educational leader will encounter at some point, and that is conflict management. You know, conflict is not always a negative. As a matter of fact, when handled well, it can strengthen governance, improve communication, and deepen trust within a district and a community. And so the challenge really is how to navigate difficult moments with professionalism, emotional intelligence, and clarity. And today we are joined by two of my esteemed colleagues who bring both experience and practical insight to this conversation. I welcome our chief legal counsel, Sarah Clark, our director of Board of Management Services, Christy Robbins. Sarah and Christy, thank you all for being here today.

SPEAKER_02 1:01

Thanks for having us.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

So glad to have you. So glad to have you. So, you know, sometimes you walk into con uh conversations that are a little tedious and people get a little nervous, and conflict seems to be one of those things that we're just hearing about from our board members, right? So, Sarah, I want to start with you. You know, you manage our legal department, of course, and the legal hotline is there. Yeah. And so what are you hearing from our members in regards to conflict that they're seeing in districts and how they're navigating those tensions?

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Yeah, so I I think that the sort of the root of this and is kind of resulting from a couple different things. One, you've got new people on the board, right? We have a whole group of new board members that came on in January. Um in some districts, you've got a new superintendent or a new treasurer in key leadership roles. Um and when you have a new team, you've got new team dynamics. And so uh sometimes that causes questions or conflict, as we say, with um, you know, who's doing what, who needs to be communicated with at what point, um, how are we gonna have uh conversations about these difficult topics? Um and so you've got you know uh a lot of um conversations about roles responsibility and how we want to communicate. I think the other thing is this is kind of a difficult time for school districts, right? So you've got districts that are navigating some real challenges and some real pressures. They've got budget challenges that we all know about, um, community expectations, uh political polarization in some districts. And so that's creating these environments that are really stressful for districts to navigate. And so, you know, it can cause it can cause those tensions. Those are real tensions the districts are dealing with.

SPEAKER_00 2:33

Yeah. You know, we talk about bringing in new people, so of course you're bringing in different personalities and different things that they bring to the table. And I and of course, I always say, I think every board member serves with good intention. They want to make a difference for the kids they're serving. But Chrissy, I have to ask you, you know, conflict often becomes difficult when the emotions get high, you know, and and the tenor, uh, you can feel the temperature rising in yourself. Share about how, if I'm a board member, how do I manage conversations to make sure they're emotionally grounded and I don't get lost in my own personal uh emotions about myself?

SPEAKER_02 3:05

Well, that's that's a great question, Mark. Um, self-awareness is a beautiful thing. Um, as we work with board members around the state, um, we talk about difficult conversations and the way that those can be navigated. And emotionally grounded leaders really pause and reflect. I think the best advice I received um early in my career was to learn to act rather than react. And that again takes self-awareness and it it uh requires you to stop in the moment, to move from a point of view to a viewing point, um, to try to see others' perspectives. And so when we work with boards, um, we establish norms in terms of the way that they want to communicate with one another and the way that they want to approach conflict. So as you said, I, you know, my belief is that people who put themselves out there to run for boards of education want the best for their community and their students. So keeping that at the center really helps to navigate conflict.

SPEAKER_00 4:06

Yeah, Christy, I want you to deal more with that. Uh, I think it was a key strategy. You said pause and reflect. Now, a lot of times people who are leaders have a lot to say and really want to but I think that pause and reflect is a really impactful strategy. Can you talk more about that?

SPEAKER_02 4:20

Sure. Um, you know, it's important to remember to, I think it was um Saint Francis of Assisi said it, but Stephen Covey popularized it in The Seven Habits. But seek first to understand, then be understood. And so as you're listening and getting into conversations, um, communication is so much more about active listening and trying to understand others' perspectives. Conflict is great when it can be managed in a healthy way. We encourage different perspectives. That's where you get the best solutions from our point of view.

SPEAKER_00 4:55

When you're when you talk about that, you know, I think uh about the concept of active listening. Um, you know, I don't know if you all have ever been in those conversations where you talk with a person and you're speaking, you can tell they're not even listening to you. They're just ready to respond. But talk about how active listening is even helpful in de-escalating conflict.

SPEAKER_02 5:14

Again, it goes back to um taking a pause and trying not to rush through the conflict, but trying to understand um someone's perspective that may be different than yours. And so if you are intentional and deliberate about it, that helps you to manage through difficult conversations. Yeah. Um there are times where you may not want to move forward in a conversation if it's getting too heated. But it's best to take a time out to listen actively, and that means to really, as you said, Mark, you're not listening to respond, you're listening to understand.

SPEAKER_00 5:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:48

And if you approach it from that perspective, then that, you know, keeping again the mission of the district, the students of the district, the goals and priorities in mind as you move forward through difficult conversations.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

You know, Sarah, board disagreement is inevitable.

SPEAKER_02 6:03

Right.

SPEAKER_00 6:03

Right. It's going to happen. Right. Flat. Um but sometimes that disagreement becomes personal.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

Right.

SPEAKER_00 6:09

And um and that's never the intention, but it happens. Talk to us about what advice you would offer to boards that are struggling with, you know, the inevitability of conflict is there, but I want you to deal with how do we keep it away from being personal.

SPEAKER_01 6:22

Right.

SPEAKER_00 6:22

Yeah. And attacking.

SPEAKER_01 6:24

Yeah, I think it I it I think this is also an opportunity to pause, right, and reconnect and and reflect on what are our shared commitments, right? Why are we here? Um, what are we trying to accomplish for the students? What are we trying to accomplish for our community? Um, and when you refocus and sort of move off of personalities into those shared commitments that that can focus again back on personality or problem solving rather than personalities. Yeah. Um and I think, you know, Christy talked about this. I think one of the strategies for doing that is to have those clear norms in advance, right? Um, have the conversations about what are our expectations for communication, for how we're gonna beh behave with one another, and have those conversations before the conflict occurs. Those are things like how are we gonna communicate? How do we what does a professionalism look like on our board? And how do we have those respectful conversations? And you create those guardrails in advance so that when conflict comes up, you already have uh sort of a foundation that you can fall back on. Um and I think uh you know OSBA has a lot of resources to help in this area. Um we have uh trainings that sort of set up the roles and responsibilities conversations. Um Christy does a lot of work with districts where she goes in and has those conversations about level setting and and establishing those nor norms in advance.

SPEAKER_00 7:42

Yeah, yeah. I think um, you know, one of the benefits, you know, of OSBA membership is being able to have these really genuine conversations around these real issues. You know, Sarah, you said earlier our boards are facing some challenges that maybe they've never seen before. Right. Um and what we're attempting to do is the challenges are already there. Let's not create new ones with internal conflict that maybe we can resolve together. And you know, Christy, one of the things that we see pretty consistently is the importance, or we talk about consistently, excuse me, the importance of board and superintendent relationship. Yes. Uh how critical that is. First of all, I want you talk about that, the importance of having a good relationship between the board and superintendent.

SPEAKER_02 8:20

Absolutely. So, you know, the it's a partnership, and um the superintendent is part of the board leadership team, as is the treasurer. And oftentimes when we see conflict between the superintendent and boards or board members, it's because there's a lack of clarity around roles. So we work with boards to help them understand that their role is to stay at that 30,000-foot level governance and policy and not to get into the day-to-day operations. And that's oftentimes when there's miscommunication or you're stepping outside of your role, that can create conflict with superintendents.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

Well, let me push a little bit. All right, I'm a new board member. I got the votes because I want to make a difference for the children I serve. And I feel like it's important for me to be a little bit more involved in the day-to-day operations. Help me to understand why my role is a little bit different than maybe what I came in thinking it would be.

SPEAKER_02 9:17

Well, and I actually experienced that, Mark, when I was elected to Westerville's Board of Education. You know, I came in thinking that I'm gonna bring all of my human resource management experience. I'm gonna come in and really shake some things up from a management perspective, but quickly learned that I needed to focus on the policies, focus on governance, um, focus on community. And um I did spend some time with our superintendent to make sure, I think this is great advice for new board members, to understand what his expectations were of me and what my expectations would be in terms of the way that we communicate with one another. And so a couple of pieces of advice that I share with boards that I was given that was really helpful was again, know your policies when um the community members approach you about situations, make sure you're familiar with policy and ask questions, ask a lot of really good questions rather than assuming that whatever is being shared with you, perhaps by a community member who's dissatisfied with the decision may not be the full picture, may not be the full story.

SPEAKER_00 10:23

And you know, Christy, I want you to start us off with this, but Sarah I want to hear your feedback on this too. Um I'm not gonna say with the malicious intent, but there are times where trust is broken. It happens, right? What would you all suggest being the first steps or first couple of steps that a person should take when trying to rebuild that trust? And I want to give it give it to you first, Sarah and then Christy, I want you to follow up on that.

SPEAKER_01 10:42

Yeah, I I think and when the tr when trust is broken, there is clearly a sign of communication breakdown. Um, you know, they don't feel heard, they don't feel like there is um there is a response that is appropriate to the concern that is being raised. So I think, again, that some of the things that we've already talked about are so important here too. Um you want to make sure that you're understanding what the actual issue is. You want to make sure that you're being responsive and and empathetic to the concerns that are being raised, and you want to be responsive, right? You want to actually act as we've talked about and respond to that. And I think if people see, oh, this is genuine, this isn't lip service, this is um a concern that we're actively working towards as a district and as a leader of this district, I think the more consistently that you can do that, um the quicker you can rebuild that trust.

SPEAKER_00 11:28

Yeah, what are your thoughts, Christine?

SPEAKER_02 11:30

Well, rebuilding trust takes honest communication and um making sure that you are, again, if I feel like I have a trust issue with a colleague, it's up to me to take that first step and to spend some time attempting to rebuild trust through honest communication, through listening, which is a big part of communication, through respect and professionalism. We may not always see eye to eye, and I don't think that's a bad thing, but I need to spend some time understanding their perspective, and um it's through little things that trust can be rebuilt, through action steps, through follow-up, through feedback, through acknowledging, even you know, out loud that we have an issue that we're trying to resolve and and trust that we're trying to rebuild. And again, at the very focus needs to be the students, um, very core of what you do, the students, the community, the district, um, and the priorities that the district is trying to accomplish on behalf of the students.

SPEAKER_00 12:31

Yeah, I think it's so important that you both said it has to be genuine, it has to be authentic. And then you said it's okay that we don't see eye to eye. I think sometimes our boards get a confused. Uh you're not we're not looking for uniformity, but we're looking for unity. And there's a difference, you know. Um and so I think what you all have shared in regards to those steps of rebuilding trust is so critical. And the communication piece, right? Um, I think what we can all agree is when there's a lack of communication or unfortunately miscommunication, it builds this conflict, unfortunately, and and uh and it leads to broken trust. And so when you're talking about how to rebuild that, I think I hope our listeners are hearing, trust can be rebuilt. It does not have to stay in this uh negative place that we can rebuild from that. So, Sarah, when we're um dealing with our community in conflict, now that's something that I think has been an issue for boards since time immemorial. Yeah, you know, uh uh whether it plays out in public comment, whether it plays out in public Facebook, you know, the sometimes the community just does not agree what the boards are doing. I I think what I want you to speak to is how should boards re respond to when uh emotions from the community become highly charged?

SPEAKER_01 13:44

Yeah, I I think that this is tough too, right? Especially in this commun in this time that we're at where social media is so quick. And and it's very difficult to stay on top of that when somebody is upset with you. Um and so I think part of it is creating spaces for your community to be heard. Um districts that do this well, I think, have have utilized things like listening sessions or coffee chats, um, you know, creating intentional town halls or forums for people to have those conversations. Um, again, to make sure that they understand the concerns and aren't making assumptions about what they think that the the community feels about a particular topic. So um I think the other thing, you know, remaining calm, um remaining consistent, remaining transparent in all of those conversations and communications with your community. Um reassurance that the that the district leadership is listening, that their uh concerns are being heard, and that the district is actively doing something to respond to those concerns. And so I think it's important for board leaders to acknowledge those concerns, um, you know, be honest with what they're hearing and be honest with what they're seeing and communicate back to the community with empathy. Um, you know, and and again, demonstrating and and being very transparent about what it is that you're doing to resolve those concerns. You as a district want to serve as the resource for factual information. And so the more information that you can push out that's consistent and that's factual, I think the better off that you'll be as a district. Um I think it's really easy and really uh sort of in your nature sometimes to respond uh or react impulsively when people are saying you know these hurtful things, it's very easy to jump back and say that's not true, or or you know, to be to shift the focus away from sort of the underlying issue and and onto that one comment. Um so the more that you can you know re focus on your themes, focus on those uh big picture concerns and sort of bring it back to what your messaging is, uh the better off you'll be.

SPEAKER_00 15:44

Yeah, Christy, I think, you know, in your experience as a former board member, um, you know, share your insights in regards to how do you deal with it. I'm not saying anyone attacked you personally. I'm sure you were phenomenal in Westerville, but how how do you deal with that in in the in the moment, right? Because it's a reality right there. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02 16:00

Well, when you know that your heart um is is about serving the students and trying to make sure that um you're serving the community and and helping the district, it's it can be difficult. And I recall one particular board meeting where we the levy failed, we knew that the next meeting there would be a lot of people showing up and would not be happy because reductions were going to have to be made. And at that time I was serving as a board president, and so I was facilitating the meeting, and many, many people signed up for public comment. So, really again, going back to acknowledging, you know, acknowledging that we understand that there a lot of people are here, they're very upset. We want to hear you. It's easier for us to hear you when we are communicating respectfully and with emotional intelligence and civilly, and and saying something like that out loud really kind of took the air out of the room. And it's it served um it served us well because people did understand that we're here as your um elected officials, as your elected board, to listen to what you have to say and to not uh just roll our eyes during public comment or just suffer through public comment, but really truly listen to what's being said so that we can take all of that information into account as we um take our next steps.

SPEAKER_00 17:24

Yeah, yeah. You know, I th I'm very appreciative of the partnerships that the Ohio School Board Association has. Uh we're we are really um benefit from those that we're able to partner with. And we've had a partnership with the Ohio State University, and you all were able to get some information in regards to conflict resolution and management and things of that nature. Uh, I wonder from from that time you all spent there, were there things shared that separate organizations that go through conflict versus those that get stuck? Was there some information shared during that that those training sessions?

SPEAKER_02 17:55

Um I would say that um what was shared is uh really thinking about planning for this type of conflict well in advance of the conflict happening. So things like tabletop exercises that sometimes occur in districts and in other organizations where you can prepare for something that may be coming up, knowing that there'll be conflict involved. And then just some of the skills that were brought forward as we went through the training, just talking about focusing on the issue, what's the problem at hand, actually creating an issue statement, what are we trying to resolve and coming at it from again, not a win-lose perspective, but what's what is the best way to resolve this situation to be able to move forward?

SPEAKER_01 18:44

Some of those tabletop exercises too ask you to take the perspective of somebody else, right? So you're you're it's a it's a role-playing exercise. So you are a board member, maybe serving in the role of a superintendent, just to sort of again reframe that conversation from a different perspective, see, you know, how how which I think helps in some of these conflict situations as well, where you're coming at it from a different angle, putting yourself in someone else's shoes.

SPEAKER_02 19:07

And that that often helps.

SPEAKER_00 19:08

That's that's something I I really like that planning for the conflict, right? Uh we've acknowledged that it's inevitable, but I think we can say at the same time, let's prepare for it, let's plan for it, and have ways to uh potentially mitigate it uh and hopefully move to resolution. And so, in that mindset, I would like Sarah to start us off. Yeah, give me some strategies, one or two uh that come to mind. I'm a board member, I've I've set through this conversation, I think it's been helpful, but I'd like just a strategy or even a mind shift, a mindset shift that board members and district leaders uh can begin using to immediately uh improve conflict management.

SPEAKER_01 19:46

I I think uh the biggest thing that would be helpful and maybe the most practical strategy is to approach these disagreements with curiosity. And we've talked about that in lots of different ways today, but you know, conflict can escalate really quickly if you start assigning motives um or assumptions to um one another instead of just asking questions. So coming at, you know, we talked about the pause, the importance of the pause, but pausing and then asking, help me understand your perspective, right? Just that simple shift can switch from, you know, very defensive adversarial position to a one that's collaborative. I want to understand why you're coming at this from your perspective, why you're um why you you believe what you believe. Help me understand that. And that can create the space for listening and for cre um collaboration and problem solving.

SPEAKER_00 20:34

Yeah, Christy.

SPEAKER_02 20:35

Yeah, I'm so glad Sarah said that. That really changed my approach to dealing with conflict when someone advised that you approach it with curiosity. You're trying to understand where the other person is coming from and trying to identify common ground. So um taking that pause, taking a breath, um, taking a time out, and realizing that you really want to listen to understand in an emotionally intelligent way. And again, being self-aware enough to know that if you're starting to feel defensive or if you're starting to feel frustrated and you want to respond before even hearing someone else out, that you really do need to take a pause and and step back and think about um what's the best way for us to communicate in order to resolve this conflict.

unknown 21:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:25

And so from an OSBA membership perspective, Sarah, just share with our members how best, you know, we have our full legal team at the ready uh to assist sometimes with uh questions that are, you know, maybe around conflict to make sure they're staying compliant. Just share some insights and resources that we have available from a legal perspective.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

Sure, absolutely. So we have lots of resources. Probably the most um helpful one or the first place to start would be with the legal hotline. I think you mentioned that earlier. Um people can call that. We have an attorney that's assigned to that hotline every day. Um that number's eight five five OSBA law. Um catchy, Sarah. So catchy, I know. Easy to remember, uh hopefully. And so yeah, call that number. Um we're happy to help. We have uh fact sheets on some of these topics, uh lots of resources that we're in the process of developing as well. So um, you know, great place to start if you don't know where else to turn. So call that hotline number.

SPEAKER_00 22:15

Awesome. And I know in Board of Management Services, we provide custom workshops. And and part it seems as though many times when you all are doing your custom workshops, we deal with conflict a lot. Talk talk a little bit more about that and how we help represent that.

SPEAKER_02 22:29

Um and and again, as we work with boards who want us to come in and help um with board governance and kind of level set and think about board roles and responsibilities. Oftentimes we'll be asked about conflict management and conflict resolution. And so, you know, there are different um tools that we use uh to help. It's important to understand how everyone deals with conflict individually. We're all, you know, we experienced in dealing with conflict and oftentimes revert to one kind of dominant approach other than um instead of others. And so learning what all of those conflict management styles are, um, something that we work with boards to do. And it really, what we've seen are aha moments. Someone will realize, oh yeah, you know, I'm someone who is competitive, so I want to win that argument, or I'm someone who avoids conflict, so I'm gonna withdraw and I'm not gonna participate, and then I'm gonna get angry and frustrated. So we do customize workshops to help boards specifically deal with conflict in that area. We've also worked recently with several boards around developing operational norms, and that helps to identify how are we gonna work with one another. And things like we're going to, when we do have a conflict, we're gonna approach it civilly, respectfully. Um, we're gonna approach it from a perspective of listening and then holding each other accountable to those operational norms.

SPEAKER_00 23:57

Yeah, you know, when we were together for BLI, Dave Kepperton started us off by talking about the importance of having joy in the midst of this hard work that we're doing. And I think even his messaging, even when we have times of conflict, we can still do it from a perspective that we don't have to hate one another, uh, but we can figure out how to resolve it in the most helpful way. And so as we bring our conversation to a close, if there's just a word of encouragement, Sarah, that you have for our membership in regards to somebody might be in conflict right now and have gleaned some strategies from our conversation, just leave him a word of encouragement. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:28

Yeah, I I think, you know, these are difficult seasons, right? That's not it's that just because you have a conflict on your board right now doesn't mean you will always be in conflict. It doesn't mean that your board is broken. Um it means you have passionate people who are invested in this. Um it's it's important work that you're doing, and that is a sign um that you have committed people who are who are in this space who are working working to um you know reach solutions to things that are not easy. Uh and so the fact that you have conflict means that you have people who are committed in your district and passionate to this work, and that's it, that's a good thing, even though it doesn't feel like it at times.

SPEAKER_00 25:05

Absolutely. Christy?

SPEAKER_02 25:06

Just encourage um folks to um embrace conflict as an opportunity. School leadership has never been easy. And when you think about the complex times, um, you know, today's environment that brings extraordinary pressure and complexities, and um school leaders really have a tremendous influence. This is something that I think is important for people to remember is that school leaders have a tremendous influence on culture. Absolutely. The community's watching how you handle conflict, the students are watching how you handle conflict, and so you can bring stability and success as a result of how you navigate through conflict, but do it in a way that strengthens trust, that is professional, um, and that is collaborative, and view it as an opportunity rather than something to be avoided.

SPEAKER_00 25:56

Christy, Sarah, thank you all so much for being here today. You all have made the forum phenomenal, and we appreciate both of you sincerely and all your hard work on behalf of our membership. And so, you know, conflict may be unavoidable, but how we respond as leaders to conflict ultimately shapes the culture and the trust and effectiveness of a district. And so conversations like today uh help equip board members and educational leaders uh to lead with professionalism, empathy, and purpose. And so thank you uh for your continued service in your community. Thank you for being willing to make a difference for children. And of course, thank you for being a part of today's discussion. Go to our website, get those resources that we referred to you. Uh, we're here to help uh to make sure that you have everything that you need to continue to lead with excellence. Have a wonderful day, and thank you for being a part of the OSBA forum.