Conflict management styles and strategies

Your answer to this question probably depends on the various contexts in your life. If you still live at home with a parent or parents, you may have daily conflicts with your family as you try to balance your autonomy, or desire for independence, with the practicalities of living under your family’s roof. If you’ve recently moved away to go to college, you may be negotiating roommate conflicts as you adjust to living with someone you may not know at all. You probably also have experiences managing conflict in romantic relationships and in the workplace. ” As with all areas of communication, we can improve if we have the background knowledge to identify relevant communication phenomena and the motivation to reflect on and enhance our communication skills.

• To be successful with this conflict management style, only use it as a temporary fix when time is of the essence on difficult decisions.
• People who avoid the situation hope the problem will go away, resolve itself without their involvement or rely on others to take the responsibility.
• According to a group of psychologists, there are three categories of conflicts.
• Self-construal alone does not have a direct effect on conflict style, but it does affect face concerns, with independent self-construal favoring self-face concerns and interdependent self-construal favoring other-face concerns.

Have you ever seen red, or perceived a situation through rage, anger, or frustration? Then you know that you cannot see or think clearly when you are experiencing strong emotions. Your awareness of them can help you clear your mind and choose to wait until the moment has passed to tackle the challenge. When we feel judged or criticized, our ability to listen can be diminished, and we may only hear the negative message. By choosing to focus on the message instead of the messenger, we keep the discussion supportive and professional.

Workplace Conflicts? 5 Tips to Improve Communication

Consequently, a neurotic personality is less apt to forgive or to have a disposition of forgivingness. Effective conflict resolution serves all parties and preserves harmony. In cross-cultural situations, many scholars advocate the use of face negotiation techniques, as outlined below. There should be a high level of information exchange in the exploration stage. The overarching goal in this stage is to get a panoramic view of the conflict by sharing your perspective and listening to the other person. In this stage, you will likely learn how the other person is punctuating the conflict.

This technique is risky because one is never clear on the other person’s interpretations of the hints or comments. It also does not work to blame someone else for a decision or request you are making. Asking people to guess the reason for the meeting, essentially to read your mind, is irritating and ineffective at problem solving.

Improving Your Ability to Resolve Conflict

Compare and contrast the five styles of interpersonal conflict management. Even though you may prefer one of the conflict resolution strategies discussed above over the others, all of these strategies can be used effectively in certain how to deal with someone who avoids conflict situations. Does your federal workplace offer training in creative problem solving or conflict management? Someone who tends to lean on a collaborating style might want further training to improve their inherent approach.

While it may be easy to tolerate a problem when you’re not personally invested in it or view it as temporary, when faced with a situation like Rosa and D’Shaun’s, avoidance would just make the problem worse. For example, avoidance could first manifest as changing the subject, then progress from avoiding the issue to avoiding the person altogether, to even ending the relationship.