Conflict Management Styles At The Individual And Little Gathering Level

In Cloke and Goldsmith’s Resolving Conflicts at Work, strategy 1 gives us an overview of conflict today and the many factors that influence. The authors also explain the many ways nearly every conflict can be handled. Cloke tells us that differing human perceptions keep us stuck in conflict longer than is necessary and productive. Early family development sets the default settings for each person’s perception of the situations they will face for the rest of their lives. Cloke goes on to say that conflict is unavoidable especially because today’s media continually subjects Americans to conflict following a common injunction, “if it bleeds it leads.”

In today’s organizations conflict and power are important elements to the success of any company but can also create negative long term impacts if not addressed. Organizations require enough power within the leaders to get through conflict and enough conflict within individuals to create new innovations. Not all conflict is bad but when there is conflict individuals with power must assist in aligning conflict resolution to assist in understanding for everyone involved in the conflict. The need for successful conflict resolution is vital for employees so that they are capable of moving on and understanding why the conflict was overcome.

Choosing a topic and problem for a signature assignment which is very close to a research topic could be a hurdle. It requires good literature review which is derived by tapping and evaluating previous researchers’ efforts and expertise. A potential research study on “Conflict Management Styles among Corporate Executives in Developing Countries – Nigeria a Case Study” is considered for a signature assignment. Conflict is inevitable and exists everywhere. In organizational system, conflict and methods of conflict management influences different groups (employees, management team and executives).

Separate assessments of my conflict style reveal that I have become primarily attuned with the integrating style of conflict management, which came as no surprise to me, as I found the results of the assessments to be accurate. However, the assessments also showed that I was nearly equal in the compromising style, leading them to be a near tie. I would be the first to admit that his has not always been the case. It has taken a fair amount of life experience and focused effort in order to move away from the predominate style of compromise

There are different conflict management styles, the dictatorial style, which insists that things are addressed their way and the low self -esteem style, which just allows others to have it their way. It is up to the individual to decide which way works for them. Additionally, the abdicator handles conflict by bowing out or walking away. This method is unhealthy because it robs the offended growth opportunity, which results from working through issues (Pegues, 2009, p.49). Another style is the collaborator, which often involves cooperation and pulling together to reach a common purpose and are emotionally balanced.

“One of the tenets of this book is that all conflicts are about two issues: power and self-esteem.”(Hocker,J.L. & Wilmot, W.W., 2014). Thought, interpersonal relationships, and knowledge form our mental image of how we view or regard ourselves, consequently how view ourselves determines our conflict engagement method. Personal power, as it relates to the authority, control and the influence we exert in an organization, is also a predictor of our conflict engagement method. From our text, we can carefully conclude that our self view and perceived organizational influence contribute to our participation in conflict.

While conflict can be a healthy part of an organization, conflict managed poorly has significant impact on an organization. What further exacerbates this issue is when there is an imbalance of power. This paper examines the relationship of conflict and power. It will address how imbalance of power can impede one’s efforts in managing conflict in the workplace. It will also identify ideas on how to integrate ways to mediate conflict into the culture. Lastly, the paper will use a case study to illustrate these concepts.

Organizational conflict or the “web of the Abilene Paradox” (Harvey, 1988) is more a result of the inability to manage agreement than it is the ability manage conflict. According to Harvey, there are six specific characteristics often displayed by groups that fail to manage agreement effectively.

The three factors selected as identifiers (dominance, avoidance, and compromise) were chosen because they make up the majority of individual conflict styles and they categorically encompass a number of goal-driven behaviors found in a conflict at varying degrees. However, it’s important to note that all three of these behaviors can have both positive and negative consequences in the context of the conflict in the same way that “both avoidance and engagement are workable options in different circumstances” (Hocker & Wilmot, 2014, p. 150).

Kale and McCullough (2003) in conferring the five conflict levels make note that conflict is defined as “power struggles over differences”. The authors note the following “based on our definition, then, we will discuss five levels. The first two are really pre-conflict levels followed by three levels of actual conflict. Our levels are as follows: Awareness of Differences, Confronting the Differences, Power Struggles, Fight or Flight and Intractable”.

For our project, Marilyn Martinez, Elexis Padilla and I presented on Chapter 8, titled “Conflict and Cohesion in Groups.” Each group member presented on two sections of each chapter – 8.1 to 8.2 for Elexis (“Conflict in Groups” and “Constructive and Destructive Conflict”), 8.3 to 8.4 for myself (“Conflict Styles” and “Conflict Management Strategies”), and 8.5 to 8.6 for Marilyn (“Conflict and Member Diversity” and "Group Cohesion") The chapter objectives of my sections were to identify the appropriateness of conflict styles and informing the audience or methods which can effectively resolve conflict. Each objective connected to the overall objective of effectively managing either constructive or destructive conflict within groups while also promoting group cohesion.

A leader has a role that can impact others to be more operative in functioning to attain a common goal and maintain effective working relationships amongst group members (Johnson & Johnson 2012). This makes leaders in groups considerably important in shaping individuals (Johnson & Johnson 2012). However, conflict arises in groups and becomes difficult to manage when a leader and the followers lack the skills to manage conflict as a team (Johnson & Johnson 2012). Leadership and conflict resolution skills must exists between leaders and followers in order to manage conflict (Johnson & Johnson 2012). Also, it is possible for followers to teach leaders how to lead and resolve problems since followers can play an active role in building relationships amongst group members (Howell & Shamir cited in Johnson & Johnson 2012). Since followers and leaders both have significant roles in accomplishing the group goals, they both have a role to manage conflict effectively as a group (Johnson & Johnson 2012). This essay will discuss how leaders have an important role in managing conflict and likewise with followers having important roles in managing conflict. Conflicts, the various types of conflicts that happen in groups and the reasons behind the conflicts will be mentioned followed by approaches that can be taken to help manage struggles within groups. The methods can be used by leaders and followers in order to manage

Integrating; this style of conflict management is concerned with identification of joint problem, confrontation of attitude and proposing the possible solution for the conflict. This style of conflict management is more effective for solving complex issues. Additionally, this style of conflict management tends to be more effective in long run. However, this style of conflict management may not be effective in managing the conflicts that surface out of differing values of employees.

Conflict management is the detriment of many teams or groups in accomplishing its goals. This is because most people do not understand the different conflict styles and how to apply the rules and principles associated with the style you may be dealing with. In this paper I will analyze three of the five management styles discussed in the textbook Communication in Small Groups. Avoidance and competition are two styles that I believe have the greatest effect on hindering a group or team from accomplishing its goals. Collaboration, however, is a style that I believe is most effective in

There are millions of conflicts every day and people have many different conflict management styles. Authors of online article “Cultural intelligence and conflict management styles”, Gonçalves, Gabriela & Reis, Marta & Sousa, Cátia & Santos, Joana & Orgambídez-Ramos, Alejandro & Scott, Peter, explains, “Conflict is an inevitable reality both in personal and organizational life. Given its inevitability, it must be managed. Conflict is defined as ‘a perceived or real incompatibility of values, expectations, processes or outcomes between one or more parties in practical and/or relational issues’. The strategies used to deal with conflict can be categorized according to the way in which two variables intersect each other: (1) the desire to satisfy the interests of the counterparty; and (2) the desire to satisfy one’s own interests. Five main styles of conflict management result from this intersection: integrating, avoiding, dominating, compromising and obliging.” (Goncalves et al. 278) With these main styles of conflict management there are many ways people handle conflicts, in the next section I will discuss how self-concept affects conflict management.