You don’t have to be a conflict resolver to make a difference
What can you do when the tone at work becomes too harsh – and when should you involve your manager or others? Get practical advice on how to handle the situation.
Respectful communication at the faculty
The faculty’s 2025 workplace assessment (APV) shows that 12 per cent of employees experienced rude, offensive or condescending language during the previous year.
For this reason, we are focusing on promoting respectful and constructive communication at the faculty.
During 2026, the faculty is running workshops in a number of research groups, departments and units. You can read more about the initiative in this article.
At the workshops, employees will work with specific everyday situations, discuss shared expectations about how we communicate with one another and gain new tools for speaking up and setting boundaries.
Through a series of articles in Inside Health, we are putting respectful communication in the spotlight, looking at examples from everyday working life and tools for addressing them. The aim is to help all of us better understand what we can do if we ourselves experience a harsh tone.
Read the previous articles in the series:
Health stiller skarpt på den gode omgangstone
A harsh tone does not always begin with harsh words
A comment in a meeting comes across more harshly than intended. An email leaves you with an uneasy feeling. Or a colleague is interrupted time and again.
In the moment, it can be difficult to know what to do. Should you speak up straight away, let it pass or raise it later?
Everyday situations like these are at the heart of the faculty’s initiative to promote respectful communication. The initiative is based in part on the 2025 workplace assessment (APV), in which 12 per cent of employees reported that they had experienced rude, offensive or condescending language within the past year.
As part of the initiative, consultancy Human House is running workshops with groups of employees from across the faculty. Here, employees and managers work with specific situations and are given tools to help them respond when the tone begins to deteriorate.
Talk about the situation – not the person
When the tone becomes harsh, many people either remain silent or respond defensively. This is according to Jakob Bjarnø Nissen, senior consultant and psychologist at Human House.
Instead, you can try to open up the conversation without immediately creating a conflict:
“I’m not sure how you meant that, but it actually came across as a little harsh to me.”
“This gives the other person an opportunity to explain what they meant or correct themselves without the conversation necessarily developing into a conflict,” explains Jakob Bjarnø Nissen.
His advice is to focus on the specific situation and your own experience rather than trying to guess the other person’s motives. For example, you could say:
“When you said that in the meeting, I wasn’t actually sure how you meant it.”
According to Jakob Bjarnø Nissen, this is more conducive to dialogue than a generalisation such as:
“You’re always so rude.”
“When we describe specific situations rather than attributing motives to others or trying to guess what their motives are, it becomes easier to engage in dialogue,” he says.
The same applies if you realise that something you have said has come across badly. A simple response might be:
“That wasn’t how I meant it, but I can see that it didn’t come across well to you.”
“Successful workplace communities are not those where misunderstandings or poor wording never occur. They are those that are good at recognising them and repairing the situation quickly,” says Jakob Bjarnø Nissen.
Five tips when the tone becomes too harsh
1. Ask before drawing conclusions
For example, say: “I’m not sure how you meant that, but it actually came across as a little harsh to me.”
2. Focus on the specific situation
Describe what was said or what happened rather than attributing particular motives or characteristics to the other person.
3. Put things right quickly if something comes across badly
A simple acknowledgement may be enough: “That wasn’t how I meant it, but I can see that it didn’t come across well to you.”
4. Speak up as a colleague too
Give the floor back to a colleague who is being interrupted, or ask them afterwards how they experienced the situation.
5. Seek help if you do not feel able to have the conversation yourself
As a general rule, speak to your immediate manager. If that feels too difficult, you can seek support and advice from your union representative (TR) or occupational health and safety representative (AMR).
You can also make a difference as a colleague
It is not only the person directly affected who can respond.
If, for example, a colleague is repeatedly interrupted during a meeting, you can help get the conversation back on track with a simple comment:
“I don’t think you’d finished speaking.”
You can also approach your colleague afterwards and ask how they experienced the situation.
“You don’t have to be a conflict resolver to make a difference. Small actions can have a significant impact. Respectful communication is a shared responsibility – not just a management responsibility,” says Jakob Bjarnø Nissen.
Managers should be particularly attentive when incidents begin to recur. This might include barbed or sarcastic comments, employees who stop expressing their opinions, or meetings where the same people are interrupted time and again.
“Often, it is not major conflicts but the small, everyday irritations that gradually wear away at collaboration over time,” he says.
Some situations need to be taken further
“It is not always easy to deal with a difficult situation on your own. If you feel that the way people speak to one another is becoming harsh or is repeatedly affecting collaboration, we in Health HR encourage you to discuss the matter with your immediate manager,” says HR Manager Louise Jensen, continuing:
“Managers have a particular responsibility for creating the conditions for a healthy working environment and for taking action when something threatens wellbeing or collaboration. It is therefore important that problematic situations are brought to light so that they can be addressed early and constructively.”
If you find it difficult to approach your manager, you can seek support and advice from your union representative or your occupational health and safety representative. Both can help you consider the best way to proceed.
Managers who need advice on how to handle a situation can contact their local HR partner.
You can read more about Aarhus University’s work to promote respectful communication and find further inspiration on the university’s website.
Contact
Head of Department and contact person for the initiative Christian Lindholst
Aarhus University, Department of Forensic Medicine
Telephone: 20 93 92 23
Email: cl@forens.au.dk