No one loves conflict and confrontation. We all want to be liked and accepted, and very few of us enjoy hurting people’s feelings.

Unfortunately, as leaders, we must be able to handle conflict or we’re not doing our job. We need to be able to hold tough and productive conversations with others, and address conflicts that arise.

As business gets more complex, ever-more-difficult situations arise. In some cases it can feel like all leaders do all day long is solve problems. If we don’t get on top of them right away, small issues will turn into big issues. They will snowball until they poison every corner of our culture.

At a time when unemployment is at record lows, competition is fierce, and consumers have endless choices, a strong, healthy culture is a must. You want to attract the very best people and work with the best vendors. This depends on your ability to create and maintain healthy, productive relationships—and conflict resolution is a cornerstone of that skill.

Here are just a few examples of how problems inside a company expand when leaders perpetually avoid conflict:

— Unresolved conflicts lead to communication breakdowns. This harms teamwork and collaboration, and, before you know it, productivity and innovation begin to suffer.

— Big, important decisions are delayed or not made at all. Unfortunately, with most decisions, someone will be unhappy. But when you put off “pulling the trigger” too long, you can miss out on great opportunities for your business.

— High performers leave. Conflict-avoidant leaders often won’t confront employees who aren’t pulling their weight, nor will they give needed promotions that might upset someone else. Resentment around the unfairness grows, and your best people get fed up and leave.

— In extreme circumstances, conflict avoidance can result in legal action. For example, if you don’t sit down and talk to an unhappy vendor over, say, a payment dispute, they may end up suing. If the leader is simply willing to sit down and have an open and honest conversation early on, such issues can usually be avoided.

— When you habitually avoid conflict, people will notice. They’ll come to see you as a weak leader. When that happens, others will begin to go around you, leave you out of important initiatives, or just steamroll over you.

Clearly, conflict avoidance is bad for your company and your career. The good news is that there are things you can do to improve in this area. For instance:

Hold up the mirror. What might be causing your conflict avoidance?… Maybe you grew up in a home where issues were swept under the rug and you never learned how to disagree with others. Or maybe the opposite is true: There was constantly conflict in your family and so you shy away from it now. Understanding why you dislike conflict is the first step in making a change.

…And how does it manifest in your behavior? Do you go along with others even when you know they’re wrong? Do you hide in your office or miss meetings you should be attending? Do you “lay down the law” and then leave the room so that you don’t have to deal with those who might disagree with you. (Believe it or not, conflict avoiders can also be bullies!) Once you zero-in on your own avoidance patterns, you can take steps to change them.

Keep your larger sense of purpose top of mind. When you remind yourself of the why—why you’re in business and why you chose the career you chose—you’ll be more willing to bite the bullet and fix what needs fixing. You’ll know that if you don’t, you’re ultimately hurting the cause you care deeply about. Then, your values won’t let you not address the issue.

Be really clear about what you expect from others. Conflicts often arise because people don’t know what you expect from them. They go down the wrong path or make mistakes because you gave vague direction (or none at all), and then you’re forced to confront them. Most people want to do the right thing and will if they know what the right thing is. So make sure they do, and you’ll head off a lot of conflict on the front end. 

Put in place strong systems and processes based on objective data. I’ve always been a fan of focusing on outcomes. This goes along with my previous point on clarity. For example, when employees know up front what you expect—and there are objective metrics in place to determine whether they met the goal or not—conversations become about results, not perceptions. Things are less likely to get personal and heated.

Get out of the habit of procrastinating. When you must have an unpleasant conversation with someone, do it right away. The longer you wait to address a problem, the more it escalates, and the worse the fallout becomes. What might have been a mildly uncomfortable encounter can become a shouting match. 

Focus on solutions rather than finger pointing. When you must hold a tough conversation, or find resolution with someone you expect to disagree with, approach them from a “What can we do to solve this issue?” standpoint. By reframing a tense encounter as “constructive conflict,” you’re less likely to come across as judging, blaming, or shaming. This simple shift keeps things civil.

If you’re wrong, say you’re sorry. Sometimes you really do “own” the conflict you’re trying to avoid, or at least a big portion of it. Take responsibility. People will respect this, and you’ll go a long way toward defusing their anger.

Finally, get some coaching or conflict resolution training. There really is an art to settling disputes and conflicts. In many ways, the ability to have tough conversations in a timely manner is the ultimate business skill. If you don’t have that skill, you owe it to your company, your employees, and yourself to master it.

All of this becomes easier when you realize that conflict really isn’t a bad thing. It’s how work gets done, progress gets made, relationships get stronger, and people grow professionally. You will never love conflict, but you can learn to live with it and get better and better at navigating it. In the process, you’ll become a better and better leader.