Part of taking responsibility for yourself in conflict, is taking responsibility not only for your actions, but your emotions.
On a recent episode of The Apprentice, Joan Rivers got upset-again-that her daughter Melissa might be fired from the show.
It was Joan's opinion that her daughter's team members might insufficiently appreciate Melissa's contributions.
Joan feared Melissa was being set up to take the fall when her team entered the Boardroom, where Donald Trump decides each week who will be fired.
Even though Joan and Melissa were on opposing teams, Joan expressed support for her daughter.
The motive to support an opponent one cares about is understandable, even admirable.
But good motives aren't enough when managing conflict and dealing with difficult people.
The challenge when we feel strongly for or against someone in a dispute is to channel the emotion appropriately toward judgments and behaviors that add value.
The danger is that the emotion will drive impulsive judgments and behaviors toward loss of value.
In this case the challenge for Joan was especially daunting, because Joan felt strongly both (1) for her daughter, and (2) against some of her daughter's teammates.
When Trump's daughter Ivanka came to visit with Joan's team, Joan spoke about Melissa.
Joan fretted loudly about how unfairly Melissa might be treated, leveling emotional accusations about Melissa's teammates, using terms like "snake" and even comparing one-with emotional intensity, not comic irony-to Hitler.
"If Melissa gets thrown under the bus," Joan told Ivanka, "then I'm quitting!" If Joan quit the show, she would forgo the opportunity to earn money for charity, presumably one of her main purposes for joining the show in the first place.
Joan would also be acting as if her daughter were a child who could not handle her own challenges without dramatic spectacles from her mother.
In trying to support Melissa with name-calling and a disproportionate ultimatum, she would not be treating her daughter as the accomplished professional and middle-aged adult that Melissa actually is.
It would be a disservice to Melissa to quit on her behalf.
Wanting to stand up for someone we care about is a fine motivation, but Joan's follow-through derailed due to unexamined emotional fervor.
That's what unexamined emotions can do to any of us in managing conflict and dealing with difficult people: turn us toward unintentionally irresponsible, even childish, judgments and actions.
Interestingly, it was another daughter on the show who voiced the mature professional alternative, of managing one's emotions and taking responsibility for one's own conflicts.
When Joan told Ivanka she would quit if Melissa were "thrown under the bus," Ivanka replied: "If I got 'thrown under the bus' my father would ask what I did to get myself put in the path of that bus.
" It is not easy to take that perspective, especially in the heat of battle.
Though it's not easy to do, resisting impulsive demonstrations under the sway of intense emotion will invariably lead you to stronger judgments and more value-producing actions.
Use strong feelings to motivate your intensity of purpose, and your determination to find the best solutions.
Don't let strong feelings bully you into bad behavior.
In managing conflict and dealing with difficult people, let emotions empower you, not overpower you.