Career Column:
What's Your Conflict Management Style?

Four Common Myths about Conflict

• Conflict is always negative. (Fact—It can be a catalyst for positive change in the end, although the process may be unpleasant.)
• Conflict is usually violent or psychologically abusive. (Fact—It can be managed peacefully with the proper skills.)
• Conflict can be prevented. (Facts—Workers have disagreements when they're thinking and communicating openly. Individuals also experience inner conflict when making life decisions.)
• Some teams never experience conflict. (Fact—Conflict is part of healthy team development. It occurs any time that two or more team members do not agree on procedures, ideas, products, services, or even when to break for lunch.)

How Do I Learn to "Fight Fair"?

Traditional schools generally do not teach students to face psychological hurdles at work, assimilate cultural differences, mediate conflict, analyze the threatening actions of others, or forecast difficulties in achieving work goals and objectives. It's up to managers and employees to figure things out effectively on the job. Smoothing disputes and disagreements can begin with the awareness of one's individual style of managing conflict, and lead to the communication skills that allow us to flexibly choose one style over another for managing conflict.

International researchers in conflict management agree that work disputes, and the styles we use to manage them, can exist at individual, group and organizational levels. There are individual conflict resolution styles that can be understood and modeled, thus learned and selected for use through written and spoken language. According to the well-researched Thomas-Kilmann model (1976), there are five styles for managing conflict, as represented by these names:

• Accommodator—takes a stand, then surrenders to what another other party wants
• Avoider—accepts conflicting decisions and behaviors without questioning, confronting, or taking a stand
• Collaborator—reaches out and works with others to develop a win-win solution
• Competitor—takes a firm stand that is perceived as authoritarian or aggressive
• Compromiser—easily gives up part of their stand in order to resolve a conflict

The descriptions above are simple, while we all know that conflict can be complex, especially when the conflict exists at greater than individual levels. The idea that all five of the individual styles respond to social conditions means that styles, and learning to use them flexibly, will develop through experience. Each style is a bonus in certain situations and work environments.

As adults, we are constantly learning and evolving so that we can learn to think about situations, flex styles, and choose resolution language and behaviors that work most effectively in particular situations. Could you identify all five styles if you saw/heard people operating with them? Can you identify the one that you use most often?

The following is a case study to test your knowledge about conflict management styles:

A Case of Charity: Identify the Conflict Management Styles

Jim and Maya are co-chairs who need to agree on a theme for this year's charity fundraiser that yielded close to a million dollars last year. Jim has made it very clear that an aggressively direct approach that personally contacts individuals who head-up area corporations to ask for large donations would be the way to go. Maya wants to reach out through a multi-media campaign focused on employees as well as customers of many businesses, even though each one would give less, in order to spark conversation and more ideas on how to raise money.

Work has been stalled for two weeks on the project due to no meeting of the minds. Jim will not see Maya's way, and she will not agree to his although she will include some large corporations on her list. They have both threatened to resign over the dispute. Jim and Maya both had excellent records of job performance prior to being assigned as co-chairs of the fundraiser. Can you identify each of their predominant styles in this case, based on the five styles described above?

Conflict management skills are important to use when a worker feels that someone else has frustrated, or is on the verge of frustrating, his/her concerns or goals. There are free online tools to help you identify your own conflict management style. Dunson & Associates provides conflict management training that helps employees to identify and mediate conflict, as well as improve conflict management styles.

For More Information
Click here for a glimpse of information on a course that will reveal the strengths and weaknesses of your own style and the details of the style(s)s described in the case study above. Learn to understand the benefit of conflict through practical exercises, and how to flex your own response style to great advantage. Get information on relevant coaching and skills training through our seminar, "Responding to Conflict...in a Day".

To share your comments on the case study above, or for more information on Dunson & Associates, contact Debi@dunsonandassociates.com or call (937) 854-5940, ext 7.

©2019 - Debi Ford is HRD Liaison at Dunson & Associates. Contributing to organizations as a psychotherapist, corporate trainer, and psychology professor, Debi cultivates maximum effectiveness through a rich understanding of human behavior.