Conflict Resolution for Leaders Training Course

Duration 5 days 10 modules · 33 contact hours
Level Intermediate Certificate on completion
Who attends Line Managers, Department Heads and others
Fee from USD 1,100 KSh 95,000 for Kenyan organisations
Where 52 cities + online See dates by city
Next start 16 Nov 2026 Course code SD-LD-251

Before you join: Participants should have experience supervising people, leading projects, managing stakeholders or contributing to workplace decisions.

Dates & prices

Two start dates a month in every city, and live online on weekdays or weekends. Fees are per participant; classroom fees include tuition, materials, lunch and refreshments, and the certificate.

Suggest a date or city

Showing the next six months. Later dates, other cities and private deliveries for your team are available on request.

Course overview

Leaders are often expected to resolve disagreement while protecting delivery, relationships, fairness and organisational standards. Yet many conflicts are left unaddressed until they affect performance, customer service, staff retention or risk exposure. Others are handled through positional argument, avoidance or premature escalation. Effective leaders need a disciplined way to diagnose the real issue, conduct difficult conversations and reach workable agreements without compromising accountability.

This course develops practical conflict-resolution capability for managers and leaders handling tension between colleagues, teams, functions, suppliers or stakeholders. Participants examine conflict styles, interests, power dynamics, emotional triggers and communication breakdowns. They prepare for difficult discussions, use active listening and questioning techniques, give direct feedback, negotiate agreements and de-escalate charged exchanges. The course also addresses team conflict, facilitated dialogue, documentation, procedural fairness and appropriate referral to HR, mediation, grievance or investigation processes.

Teaching combines instructor briefings, realistic cases, group analysis, structured simulations and individual application planning. Cases reflect situations such as disputed operational priorities, performance concerns, cross-functional delays, stakeholder disagreements and interpersonal breakdowns. Participants receive feedback on their preparation, language choices and conflict-handling decisions. They leave with a reusable conflict diagnosis, conversation-planning template, negotiation preparation model, team working-agreement checklist, escalation decision guide and personal action plan. The course is delivered over five days in classroom settings in 50+ cities or live online, with a certificate of completion.

The programme is particularly suited to leaders who must address conflict directly rather than transfer every difficult issue to HR or senior management. It is relevant to managers in government, banking, NGOs, multinational firms and large corporate environments where decisions, relationships and formal processes must all withstand scrutiny.

What you will be able to do

  • Diagnose conflict drivers using interests, power, evidence and relationship patterns
  • Prepare difficult conversations using stakeholder maps, BATNA analysis and clear objectives
  • Use active listening, questioning and reframing techniques to uncover underlying concerns
  • Deliver assertive feedback using SBI and DESC communication structures
  • Conduct interest-based negotiations that produce specific, workable agreements
  • Facilitate team dialogue using ground rules, issue framing and decision protocols
  • Determine when informal resolution, mediation, HR referral or formal escalation is appropriate
  • Create a personal conflict-resolution action plan for a live workplace issue

Benefits of attending

For you

  • Handle difficult conversations with clearer structure and less avoidance
  • Recognise personal triggers before they damage judgement or communication
  • Prepare negotiation positions without becoming fixed on demands
  • Give direct feedback while preserving professional working relationships
  • Make defensible decisions about resolution, referral and escalation

For your organisation

  • Reduces avoidable escalation of interpersonal and operational disputes
  • Improves manager consistency when handling employee concerns
  • Protects delivery through earlier resolution of cross-functional disagreements
  • Produces clearer agreements, ownership and follow-up actions
  • Strengthens procedural fairness and documentation in sensitive cases

Course modules

10 modules over 5 days

Participants can diagnose the sources, patterns and consequences of workplace conflict.

  • Conflict as task, process and relationship disagreement: diagnostic distinctions
  • Costs of avoidance, accommodation and unmanaged escalation in leadership teams
  • Trigger mapping: events, interpretations, emotions, needs and observable behaviours
  • Separating positions from interests using the iceberg model
  • Power, status and identity threats in workplace disputes
  • Conflict styles assessed through Thomas-Kilmann Instrument dimensions and choices
  • Distinguishing productive dissent from damaging interpersonal conflict patterns

Participants can regulate their responses and remain purposeful during tense interactions.

  • Recognising amygdala hijack and its effect on judgement
  • Pause routines: breathing, labelling and response selection under pressure
  • SCARF domains used to identify social threat reactions
  • Separating facts, stories and assumptions before responding
  • Emotional granularity language for naming feelings without accusation
  • Neutral body language, tone and pacing during difficult exchanges
  • Personal conflict triggers converted into an early-warning plan

Participants can prepare evidence, objectives, options and boundaries before addressing conflict.

  • Conflict assessment: parties, issues, interests, power and constraints
  • Stakeholder maps identifying decision rights, influence and informal alliances
  • BATNA, WATNA and reservation points prepared before negotiation
  • Evidence logs separating documented facts from contested interpretations
  • Selecting private dialogue, facilitated meeting or formal escalation routes
  • Conversation objectives framed around decisions, behaviours and working agreements
  • Risk assessment for retaliation, confidentiality and psychological safety

Participants can uncover concerns and reframe unproductive statements into discussable issues.

  • Active listening micro-skills: attending, paraphrasing, summarising and checking meaning
  • Open questions that surface interests, concerns and decision criteria
  • Reflecting emotion without agreement, diagnosis or premature reassurance
  • Ladder of Inference used to test conclusions and assumptions
  • Nonviolent Communication observations, feelings, needs and requests structured clearly
  • Summaries that distinguish agreed facts, unresolved issues and next steps
  • Silence and wait time used to reduce defensiveness

Participants can communicate concerns directly while maintaining respect and accountability.

  • SBI feedback separates situation, behaviour and impact precisely
  • DESC script structures assertive requests and boundary statements
  • Specific behavioural examples replace labels, motives and character judgements
  • Impact statements connect conduct with operational, customer and team consequences
  • Boundary setting distinguishes non-negotiables, preferences and possible trade-offs
  • Receiving defensive responses without counterattack or withdrawal patterns
  • Written follow-up records requests, commitments, owners and review dates

Participants can negotiate agreements that address interests, constraints and implementation responsibilities.

  • Interest-Based Relational approach separates people from the problem
  • Option generation before commitment expands mutual-gain settlement choices
  • Objective criteria drawn from policy, data, precedent and service standards
  • Package proposals trade across priorities rather than single issues
  • Conditional agreements use if-then terms to manage uncertainty
  • Concession planning protects priorities, limits and approval authority
  • Agreement language specifies actions, measures, deadlines and review mechanisms

Participants can de-escalate charged exchanges and close conversations with clarity.

  • Opening statements establish purpose, respect and discussion boundaries
  • Naming tension directly without blame, accusation or loaded language
  • De-escalation sequence: pause, acknowledge, clarify, reframe and propose
  • Reframing accusations into interests, requests and solvable problems
  • Responding to anger, tears, silence and personal attacks safely
  • Time-outs and adjournments used without abandoning accountability or trust
  • Closing conversations with clear commitments or principled impasse

Participants can address recurring team conflict through facilitation and clear operating agreements.

  • Diagnosing task, process and relationship conflict within teams
  • Team working agreements define communication, decisions and disagreement protocols
  • RACI analysis clarifies accountability before disputes become personal
  • Facilitated dialogue uses equal airtime, ground rules and issue framing
  • Meeting design separates problem definition, options and decision-making
  • Minority views documented before final decisions and action assignment
  • Repair conversations address trust breaches, apologies and future safeguards

Participants can select appropriate resolution routes while protecting fairness and organisational obligations.

  • Informal resolution distinguished from grievance, mediation and investigation processes
  • Confidentiality limits explained before sensitive information is shared
  • Documentation records facts, dates, agreements and observed behaviour
  • Procedural fairness: voice, neutrality, respect and transparent rationale
  • Bias checks prevent assumptions based on identity, seniority or affinity
  • Escalation thresholds identify safeguarding, misconduct and legal-risk concerns
  • Referral decisions preserve manager accountability and appropriate specialist involvement

Participants can apply a structured resolution approach to a live workplace conflict.

  • Conflict case diagnosis integrates interests, power, evidence and relationship history
  • Conversation plans sequence opening, inquiry, proposal and agreement stages
  • Stakeholder communication plans protect confidentiality while maintaining necessary transparency
  • Manager decisions distinguish coaching, mediation, direction and formal referral
  • Implementation reviews measure commitments, recurrence risks and relationship repair
  • Personal application plan targets one live workplace conflict
  • Peer accountability arrangements schedule follow-up, reflection and course correction

Exercises and examples are adapted to each cohort's sectors and roles.

What you take back to work

  1. Conflict diagnosis worksheet
  2. Difficult conversation planning template
  3. BATNA and concession-planning model
  4. SBI and DESC communication scripts
  5. Team working-agreement checklist
  6. Personal conflict-resolution action plan

Who should attend

  • Line Managers — address performance, conduct and working-relationship disputes directly
  • Department Heads — resolve cross-functional priorities and resource disagreements
  • Project Managers — manage delivery tensions among sponsors, teams and suppliers
  • Senior Managers — handle high-stakes disagreements requiring sound judgement
  • HR Business Partners — support managers before formal employee-relations processes begin
  • Programme Managers — facilitate agreement among stakeholders with competing interests

Skills and tools covered

Conflict diagnosisDifficult conversationsInterest-based negotiationDe-escalation techniquesTeam facilitationEscalation judgement

Tools and standards

Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument, SCARF Model, BATNA, Interest-Based Relational Approach

How the course runs

Training methodology

The course uses short instructor briefings to introduce methods, followed by case analysis, paired practice, group exercises and facilitated simulations. Participants prepare for realistic leader-level conversations, test language for feedback and de-escalation, and examine decisions made under pressure. Cases include team friction, competing priorities, performance concerns and stakeholder disputes. Instructor feedback focuses on diagnosis, listening, questioning, negotiation choices and agreement quality. Individual application planning links course methods to a current or anticipated workplace conflict.

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have experience supervising people, leading projects, managing stakeholders or contributing to workplace decisions. They should be familiar with typical workplace communication, performance and decision-making processes, and should be prepared to discuss realistic conflict situations professionally. Prior experience of difficult conversations is useful but not essential. No mediation qualification, legal training, HR specialism or psychology background is required. The course does not assume authority to make disciplinary decisions, although participants should understand their own role boundaries and escalation routes.

A typical training day

08:30 – 10:30First session
10:30 – 10:45Refreshment break
10:45 – 12:30Second session
12:30 – 13:30Lunch and networking
13:30 – 15:00Third session
15:00 – 15:15Refreshment break
15:15 – 16:30Workshop and daily review

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in East Africa Time, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

  • Instruction by a practitioner facilitator
  • Full course workbook and materials
  • Exercise files, templates and case studies
  • Refreshments and lunch on classroom deliveries
  • Certificate of completion
  • Post-course application plan

Frequently asked questions

Participants should have some responsibility for people, projects, stakeholders or workplace decisions. No formal mediation, HR or legal qualification is required.

Participants should bring details of a current or anticipated workplace conflict that can be discussed without disclosing restricted information. They will use this situation to build preparation notes and an action plan.

It is designed for line managers, department heads, project leaders, programme managers and HR business partners. It is most useful for people expected to address conflict directly and make sound referral decisions.

This course prepares leaders to manage conflicts within their own leadership responsibilities, including feedback, negotiation, team tension and escalation judgement. Mediation training focuses more specifically on acting as a neutral third party between disputing parties.

Participants receive practical templates for diagnosing conflict, planning conversations, negotiating agreements and recording commitments. The final module turns these methods into an action plan for a live workplace issue.

Each training day runs from 08:30 to 16:30 and provides about 6.5 contact hours. The five days cover diagnosis, self-management, communication, negotiation, team conflict, formal processes and application planning through ten teaching modules.

Questions about this course?

Ask about dates, fees, group bookings or running it for your team. Our training team replies by email.

Ask on WhatsApp info@skillsetdevelopment.com

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