Managing Conflict - A Must-Have Skill For All Managers & Leaders
Online, March 14, 2011 (Newswire.com) - Knowing how to manage conflict is an important skill for any manager or leader to have, because conflict is a normal part of team working.
When conflict is handled appropriately, it can be very constructive, because it stimulates growth and transformation. However, if managed inappropriately, or not at all, it will quickly become very destructive.
The article below provides an insight into the nature of conflict, as well as providing some useful tools for resolving and preventing conflict.
Conflict Management Styles At A Glance:
"Conflict is inevitable, but combat is optional." - Max Lucade
Conflict happens. How you respond to and resolve conflict will limit or enable your success.
My goal with this post is to give you the tools to understand conflict, learn your own conflict patterns, and empower you to make more effective choices when you are finding or facing conflict.
Embrace Conflict as a Source of Growth and Transformation:
Conflict can come from a variety of sources:
Goals - Conflict can happen as a result of conflicting goals or priorities. It can also happen when there is a lack of shared goals.
Personality conflicts - Personality conflicts are a common cause of conflict. Sometimes there is no chemistry, or you haven't figured out an effective way to click with somebody.
Scarce resources - Conflict can happen when you're competing over scarce resources.
Styles - People have different styles. Your thinking style or communication style might conflict with somebody else's thinking style or their communication style. The good news is that conflicts in styles are easy to adapt to when you know how.
Values - Sometimes you will find conflict in values. The challenge here is that values are core. Adapting with styles is one thing, but dealing with conflicting values is another. That's why a particular business, group, or culture may not be a good fit for you. It's also why "bird's of a feather flock together" and why "opposites attract, but similarities bind."
By embracing conflict as a part of life, you can make the most of each situation and use it as a learning opportunity or a leadership opportunity. You can also use it as an opportunity to transform the situation into something better.
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Resolving Team Conflict:
"Building Stronger Teams By Facing Your Differences"
Conflict can be pretty much inevitable when you work with others. People have different viewpoints and under the right set of circumstances, those differences escalate to conflict. How you handle that conflict determines whether it works to the team's advantage or contributes to its demise.
You can choose to ignore it, complain about it, blame someone for it, or try to deal with it through hints and suggestions; or you can be direct, clarify what is going on, and attempt to reach a resolution through common techniques like negotiation or compromise. It's clear that conflict has to be dealt with, but the question is how: It has to be dealt with constructively and with a plan, otherwise it's too easy to get pulled into the argument and create an even larger mess.
Conflict isn't necessarily a bad thing, though. Healthy and constructive conflict is a component of high functioning teams. Conflict arises from differences between people; the same differences that often make diverse teams more effective than those made up of people with similar experience. When people with varying viewpoints, experiences, skills, and opinions are tasked with a project or challenge, the combined effort can far surpass what any group of similar individual could achieve. Team members must be open to these differences and not let them rise into full-blown disputes.
Understanding and appreciating the various viewpoints involved in conflict are key factors in its resolution. These are key skills for all team members to develop. The important thing is to maintain a healthy balance of constructive difference of opinion, and avoid negative conflict that's destructive and disruptive.
Getting to, and maintaining, that balance requires well-developed team skills, particularly the ability to resolve conflict when it does happens, and the ability to keep it healthy and avoid conflict in the day-to-day course of team working. Let's look at conflict resolution first, then at preventing it.
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