Conflict Strategies In The Clay County School System: Exceptional Student Education

There are five conflict-handling styles: Forcing Style, Collaborating Style, Compromising Style, Avoiding Style and Accommodating Style. The compromising style “refers to behaviors at an intermediate level of cooperation and assertiveness. (Hellriegel, Slocum pg. 392) ” The person using is style tries to meet a goal by give-and-take. The accommodating style “refers to cooperative and unassertive behavior. (Hellriegel, Slocum pg. 393) ” The person using this style tries to accomplish a goal by using unselfish acts that will promote cooperation in others by complying with their wishes. The collaborating style “refers to high levels of cooperative and assertive behavior. (Hellriegel, Slocum pg. 391) ” The person using this style is using a win-win approach to working with others and handling conflict. When the CEO of General Hospital, Mike Hammer first attempted to control physician-driven cost he used the collaborating style by trying to convince the Director of

Behavioral scientists Kenneth Thomas and Ralph Kilmann, who developed the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument, have identified five styles to responding to conflict—competition, collaboration, compromise,

What is conflict? Even something as basic as a universal definition for the word conflict seems to vary from source to source. A literature review focusing on conflict defined it as “the interaction of interdependent people who perceive incompatibility and the possibility of interference from others as a result of this incompatibility” (Brinkert 2010). Often times the disagreement results not from a concrete difference, but rather a difference in perception (Ellis & Abbott 2012). One of the most important factors effecting conflict management is the resolution style used. The most often used tool for classifying how conflict is managed is the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (Iglesias & Vallejo 2012).

Conflict is generally defined by four criteria: expressed tension, interdependence, perceived incompatible goals, and the need for resolution (Wood,

Wilmot and Hocker defines conflict as being, “an expressive struggle between at least two interdependent people with incompatible goals, scarce resources and interference from achieving a specific goal”. ( ) Conflicts are inevitable, these conflicts can arise in intimate relationships, between parents and children, between siblings, in friendships and in the work place. While conflicts will never cease to exist, they can evolve into very complex creatures, and as "most of us are notoriously inaccurate at describing our own behavior in a conflict"(p. 129). There has become a great need for an assessment model to begin to thoroughly understand all of the elements that play into complexities of conflict. The Hocker-Wilmot Conflict Assessment Guide is so important because it aides us in describing the nature of conflict, this include; its history, precipitating events, the parties ' assumptions about conflict in general, the conflict elements, and past or potential transformations of those elements. Additionally, conflict styles are addressed, as is the perceptions of the opposing view, and the style of the system as a whole. The guide assesses the role of power in the conflict, describing the parties ' attitudes toward power, their areas of dependency and sources of power, their view of the balance of power, any unrecognized sources of power, and whether destructive forms of power balancing are occurring. The assessment should describe the parties ' goals, their

* Issues are more important and pressing and there is not enough time to deal with both

The five strategies for managing conflict management are competing, avoiding, compromising, collaborating, and accommodating. Competing is a method that acts only in favor of your point in the argument. This style does not seek any cooperation with the other individual involved and the only focus is for your side of the argument to be the winning side. This approach can be selfish as it does not take the other individuals intentions, views, or feelings on the conflict into consideration.

There are many was that people experience conflict throughout their day. This can include conflict in the work place, at home, or even on video games. All these opportunities to collide with conflict can make it difficult to determine what type of conflict is occurring, and reach the best possible solution to the problem. There are certain cues that can be seen when dealing with realistic, and nonrealistic conflict. These include then end goals related to the conflict, flexibility, and the interests of the parties involved within the conflict. Also, the appropriate response to a non-realistic conflict is to use force or coercion to resolve the issue. First realistic conflict produces different cues from nonrealistic, and these can be used in determining the type of conflict that is being dealt with.

Conflict is “an expressed struggle between at least two interdependent parties who perceive incompatible goals, scarce resources, and interference from others in achieving their goals” (Hocker, 1991). There are two basic types of conflicts: substantive and emotional. According to Schermerhorn et.al., substantive conflict is a fundamental disagreement over ends or goals to be pursued and the means for their

Description of the various conflict management techniques used, the third parties that were active in attempts to resolve the conflict, and the outcomes of these conflict management efforts.

After taking the conflict quiz, my scores were almost equally distributed over all five conflict styles. However, the one that got the most points was competing with high 8 scores, following collaborating and compromising 6 and 6, the avoiding and accommodating 5 and 5. According to Beebe and Motte, competitor is “someone who manages conflict by being assertive and pushing ideas and solutions on others.”

Based on the conflict modes of Thomas and Kilmann, there are five styles of conflict management: avoiding, accommodating, collaborating, competing and compromising. Accommodation happens when a person attempts to satisfy the other person’s concerns at the expense of their own, Avoiding is where a person sidesteps the conflict without trying to satisfy either person’s concern, Compromising is when the person partially satisfies both people’s concerns, Collaborating is when a person tries to find a win-win solution that satisfies both people’s concerns, and Competing

1. 'Pattern of Conflict ' consists of thoughts and actions for winning and losing in a very competitive environment.

The management of intrapersonal conflicts can be achieved through the implementation of two strategies which include cognitive strategies and behavioural strategies. Cognitive strategies, often referred to as defence mechanisms, help an individual to falsify, distort or deny a particular conflict. Cognitive strategies represent an attempt to control or manage negative and disturbing feelings associated with conflict and to allow an individual to carry on with his normal activities. Cognitive strategies include repression (an attempt to push conflict out of existence), rationalization (hiding the truth from oneself), fantasy or even denial of reality.

The case study has been explained in the light of internationally accepted Conflict Management strategies, concepts, and theories of the present times. These theories and concepts will help in recommending potential solutions to the aforementioned conflict.