Conflict Styles in an Organization
What is Conflict?
Conflict is simply a struggle or disagreement with another person or group of people. They are caused because of differences of what people desire out of a situation. Often times, people face conflict because each person has a different perception of what happened in an incident.
Competition
This approach is a win-lose situation. One person is always trying to one up the other person to get what they want.
Through competition, people often become assertive and the solution is only a quick-fix.
What is Conflict?
Conflict is simply a struggle or disagreement with another person or group of people. They are caused because of differences of what people desire out of a situation. Often times, people face conflict because each person has a different perception of what happened in an incident.
Competition
This approach is a win-lose situation. One person is always trying to one up the other person to get what they want.
Through competition, people often become assertive and the solution is only a quick-fix.
Avoidance
This approach is simply avoiding conflict that exists. A person can avoid a conflict by changing the topic, walking away from the situation, or joking and laughing it off. By using avoidance, space can be created to cool down the conflict but often times nothing gets resolved. In an organization when conflict occurs, the higher power will avoid the situation and pretend that it does not exist to be freed from the conflict.
Compromise
This approach is often mistaken to be the most effective but in actuality is a “lose-lose” scenario. Through compromise, both people are giving up what each wants to decide on, to meet somewhere in the middle. Each person in the conflict gives a little and gets a little out of the situation. Compromise is made up of assertiveness and cooperation.
Collaboration
The collaboration approach is meant for both people or parties to get what they both want in a conflict. This is meant to be a win-win situation and uses perspective that includes everyone's ideas. This approach takes everyone's feelings into consideration but often times requires a great deal of time and effort. It is best used in complex conflicts.
Accommodation
Accommodating requires full cooperation from everyone involved in the conflict. A downfall may occur when the cooperation work's against another persons wants or desires. This approach is useful and works well when there is someone with expertise on the topic. Through this type of approach, relationships among conflict members are preserved.
Mediation
Involving a third person to help both parties work together and reduce the tension or come to a solution to the conflict. In a workplace organization, this is helpful to smooth out issues among co-workers and can be binding through a mediation agreement.
Involving a third person to help both parties work together and reduce the tension or come to a solution to the conflict. In a workplace organization, this is helpful to smooth out issues among co-workers and can be binding through a mediation agreement.
Header photo: http://www.grantland.net/conflict.htm