My Conflict Style Analysis

Specific Purpose Statement: I want my audience to understand the differences between the five styles of conflict and when it is appropriate to use each style in a situation of conflict.

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

This activity will help you determine your natural style for dealing with conflict. It is useful to assess your predominant conflict management style(s) because we all tend to prefer one or two of the styles and at times may apply them inappropriately.

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.

Collaborating is another technique used to resolve conflict .Managers pair up with each other to achieve both of their goals in this style. This is how managers break free of the win-lose paradigm and seek the win –win. This can be effective for complex scenarios where managers need to find a novel

After we had gone over Chapter 10: Handling Difficult Conversations, Conflict and Negotiation, I decided to discuss about the two conflicts that I have been involved in within the past couple weeks. The two conflicts were evidently different and therefore I had to resolve in a different way. The types of conflict resolution I compared were bargaining, dominating, collaborating, avoiding and accommodating.

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.

When managing interpersonal conflicts the best possible outcome would be attainable by using the Win-Win method because it is able to accommodate the individual needs of all parties involved in a conflict. The most logical reason as to why this is one of the most effective ways when it comes to relieving disagreements is because it requires you to understand the others’ underlying meanings in their evident messages. Contrasting the Win-Win approach, there are three other less successful techniques in order to sway a conflict. A Win-Lose situation is when one individual/group gets their aspirations granted, while the other individual/group suffers an absolute loss. Also, in a conflict that practices the Lose-Lose technique is when neither of the two individuals involved is satisfied with the outcome. The last optional method employed in a conflict is compromising. This is a way for both individuals involved to have only some of their requests met. Meanwhile, each individual separately forgoes the remainder of his or her requests. However, sometimes the Win-Win approach is not always attainable or realistic, so one may opt for the next best approach, compromise. This is often implemented when there is not enough time/desire to understand each other’s wants. Also, when the other party involved is clearly noncompliant in employing a Win-Win problem-solving method, we may stray more toward the decision to compromise

You may not even think about what your conflict management style is until you suddenly find yourself in a tense situation where your emotions are quickly spiraling out of control. In the heat of the moment, do you tend to compete by standing up for your rights, or do you avoid the issues altogether? Do you collaborate and accommodate by listening to others and yielding to their points of view? Or do you

In his book, Creative Conflict Management, Donald Palmer identifies five main conflict management styles. Each of these styles has certain pros and cons as well as appropriate times for use. These five styles are: avoiding, accommodating, collaborating, compromising and attacking. (Donald Palmer, Creative Conflict Management, 25-31)

The styles of conflict assessment gauge my patterns of dealing with differing personalities and agendas. The assessment shows that I lean toward an accommodation style. According to Bethel University (2011), the accommodation style is high in cooperativeness and low on assertiveness. The advantage of the accommodation style is the focus on the needs and concerns of other people. When I disagree with someone, I try to see the world from his or her perspective. For example, I tend to have a liberal view toward politics; however, I find that I reach conclusions on things the same way conservative people reach conclusions, which is dictated by prior beliefs and personal circumstances. In other words, I relate to their decisions even though I disagree. However, there are disadvantages to the accommodative style. The accommodative style smooths over differences and allows the conflict to remain. The primary contributor to the unresolved situation is the low amount of assertiveness (Bethel University, 2011).

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.

A multitude of studies have been conducted to figure out the optimal styles to handle conflicts. The previous papers have mentioned the two-three-four-five factor model of conflict resolution. It was not until 1940 that the first five-factor model of conflict management was conceptualised by Follet with three primary methods namely domination, compromise, and integration, as well as secondary ones avoidance and suppression (as cited in "Learning material on interpersonal conflict: Rahim’s model", n.d.). Concurring with Follet were Blake and Mouton (1964) conceiving the scheme into forcing, withdrawing, smoothing, compromising, and problem solving on the basis of concern for people and concern for production (as cited in "Learning material

The five styles of conflict managements are competing style, accommodating style, avoiding style, collaborating style, and compromising style. Each conflict has a unique situation and style to use with each appropriate situation. A negotiator needs to satisfy the interests of both parties involved by implementing his or her knowledge of the five conflict management styles and applying the best method for the issue (Lewicki, Saunders, & Barry, 2006).

Conflict is an active disagreement or struggle between people with opposing opinions, concerns or principles. It is an inevitable and unavoidable part of our everyday professional and personal lives. There are some reasons why conflict happened, like ambivalent responsibilities, personality clashes, competition for scarce resources, clashes due to behavioural styles and unrealized expectations. Kenneth Kaye once said, “Conflict is neither good nor bad. Properly managed, it is absolutely vital.” These conflict triggers needed to be comprehend in order to be able to handle conflict systematically. Conflict handling is the process of controlling the negative aspects of conflict while increasing the