"In a previous position, I worked on a team that had challenges with power dynamics, interpersonal conflict, and trust. Unfortunately, the mid-to-upper managers appeared unaware of the tension and damage that was being caused to the overall team. I had only been in my position for a few months, and I could see how significantly the long-term effects of these dynamics impacted the productivity and morale of my colleagues. So, I set up an informal meeting with my coworkers to discuss the conflict within the team and try to glean some concrete issues contributing to the tension. With consent, I took those concerns to my supervisor in our next one-on-one meeting to seek solutions and mediation. She was grateful to have something tangible to work with and take to management, and from there she was able to set up a team meeting to bring these issues to light and set some whole-team expectations to prevent tensions from rising again in the future. In less than two weeks, productivity, morale, and collaborative work had already increased significantly."

"I experienced conflict with a colleague during my recent internship. My manager assigned me a mentor and asked that I shadow them and work with them directly to get my assignments. The person they assigned me to regularly cancelled our meetings, and generally seemed disinterested in working together. I was excited about he opportunity to be working with someone with more experience and it was disappointing to be paired with someone who was unwilling to give their time.

I set up a meeting with my mentor and asked if there was anything I could do to make it easier on him to teach me. I let him know I was invested in learning as much as I could, and I was willing to jump in and help with any of his assignments he felt I could handle. I reminded him of the expectations that our manager had set for our time together and asked him if he interpreted the goals differently than I had.

It turned out that he was going through a difficult personal situation and was struggling with the idea of teaching while trying to make it through his work day. He thanked me for discussing the issue directly with him as opposed to escalating to our manager. He then gave me access to his calendar and told me I could join any meetings I thought would add value to my experience. He told me to listen for tasks I felt like I could handle when he was taking on action items, and to ask to take on anything I was interested in.

From that point on, we quickly established a great relationship. I was able to reduce his workload during the difficult time he was going through, and he was able to answer questions and provide guidance. I am glad I spoke with him directly and that we found a way forward."

"I have been in my current position for three years. The typical job path is to be promoted to a senior-level within two to four years of taking on the role. I believe strongly in striving to learn to perform at the job level above your current level as soon as possible. This approach helps me to align my growth and learning in a direction that will serve myself and my company well in the future.

I have exceeded the job requirements for my current role for over a year now. Additionally, I gained several helpful certifications since my last promotion. I am qualified for a promotion, and my manager told me six months ago that he was working on getting it approved.

Our annual reviews came around two months ago and I was not promoted. I was disappointed given the discussions I had previously had with my manager. He did not openly address the situation, and there was a lot of tension after my review meeting. I scheduled a follow-up shortly after my review. I was calm and directly asked why I was not promoted. He indicated that he did try to get me promoted, but there was no room in the budget. I let him know I understood, but I would have preferred that he share that with me as opposed to ignoring the situation.

He apologized and asked if there was anything he could do to help. He is very well connected within the aerospace industry, so I asked if he would be willing to reach out within his network to see if anyone had a senior engineering position available. He put me in touch with a friend here who recommended I apply for this position. I really appreciate my manager's willingness to help me grow in my career even if it is with another company. He speaks very highly of Boeing and said he felt I could thrive here."

"I have been fortunate in my career to work with teams and clients that experience minimal conflict. However, I did have a conflict with a stakeholder on a recent project. My team follows an agile development methodology and we work in three week increments. We make it a goal to fully develop working features at the end of each increment, but there are times when features are not fully complete and must be carried over to the next iteration.

One of my stakeholders was very excited about a new feature that we were working on. While we were able to complete the development for the feature during the iteration, we were unable to fully test it. The feature impacted another system we integrate with, and the team responsible for that system was unavailable to make and test the required configuration changes on their side. My stakeholder was angry that he and his team had to wait for the new features and demanded that we release the new functionality without worrying about the other system during our iteration review.

I asked him if we could discuss the issue offline. I felt that I could better explain the situation after he had a chance to accept the news and calm down a bit. We met and I walked him through the potential issues that could arise if we released the functionality without testing it fully. He quickly understood that moving forward was a risky and poor idea.

I then offered to speak to the other team and ask if they would be willing to move as quickly as possible with the testing. They were able to complete the testing within a week and my team adjusted our work in the next iteration to release the feature to production in the middle of the sprint. We typically do not make production releases off schedule, and our stakeholder really appreciated us making an adjustment to accommodate his needs as quickly as possible."

"One of the teams I worked with recently experienced a lot of conflict during meetings. There was history from previous projects that were affecting the current project and keeping us from working together effectively. I decided to facilitate a meeting to work through the most important issues and find a way forward. I asked everyone to individually brainstorm a list of improvements the team needed to address. Then, I presented the findings so that the feedback could be reviewed without team members knowing exactly who had written each item.

We identified themes and then voted to identify the issues that were most impactful to our work. After that, we brainstormed strategies for improving the top items. We created a new list of ground rules and various working agreements to address process issues. Overall, taking time to take a step back and address the conflict together as a team was a really helpful strategy. We now hold regular check-ins to see if anyone has ideas on how we can continually improve, and the conflicts have been greatly reduced."

"I work with a colleague that had a reputation for developing confusing and inefficient code. He would frequently indicate his assignments were complete and our quality assurance analysts would then find that several basic requirements had not been addressed. Our project manager asked me to get involved and help my fellow engineer improve the quality of his work.

At first, I scheduled a meeting to review some of his recent code and discuss the problems with my colleague's work. He was defensive and essentially shut down, so I decided to take an alternative approach. I worked with our technical lead to identify several assignments that I could partner with the junior engineer on. We collaborated on the design, worked together on our code, unit tested our solutions, and then reviewed what we developed to ensure it met all of the requirements.

During our time together it became apparent that he needed to spend additional time designing and testing. Observing my process seemed to help him learn he needed to slow down and ensure that his work was intelligently designed and complete at each step of the process. He ultimately thanked me for helping him in a collaborative way and said it was much more effective than pointing out what was wrong with his original code."

Think of a time you've encountered conflict at work, including the situation, and explain the steps you took to resolve it. Use an example that demonstrates your leadership and compassion when a conflict arises.

Keep in mind that a href "https://www.boeing.com/principles/values.page"Boeing values/a qualities such as inclusion, humility, and transparency. If possible, describe a solution that highlights your ability to expose and address a negative situation in a manner that honors all parties involved.