Organizational Behavior.

Regina Tausan

Organizational Behavior

Andy Wagstaff

October 27, 2003

In every situation, we are responsible for our actions. Conflict situations offer each of us an opportunity to choose a style for responding to the conflict. The key to effective conflict prevention and management is to choose the conflict management style appropriate for the conflict. Most of us have a favorite style that we use in conflict situations, but we are all capable of choosing a different style when it is appropriate. In this paper, I propose to show my organizations approaches to conflict management as well as address some personal management styles that after an assessment showed in comparison to the five main types of conflict management styles.

The five types of conflict management styles are avoiding, accommodating, compromising, competing and authoritative command. People who choose the avoiding style do not get involved in conflict. A person choosing the avoiding style might say “you decide and leave me out of it”. People who choose the accommodating style put their interests last and let others have what they want. Many times these people believe that keeping a good relationship is more important that anything else. People choose a compromising style when it is important for them to satisfy some of their interests, but not all of them. People who compromise are likely to say, “Something is better than nothing”. Choosing a competitive style means that a person is putting his/her interest before anyone else’s interests. In fact, sometimes people who use the competitive style try hard to get what they want that they ruin relationships. Finally, we have authoritative command, whereby a formal authority simply dictates a solution and specifies what is gained and what is lost by whom. (Schermerhorn)

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In my workplace, conflict management approaches are mainly dealt with one of two areas. Employee Assistance Program (EAP) and Employee Relations Division. The EAP is a team of individuals dedicated to providing behavioral health services to employees, which help resolve or prevent problems that may impact the workplace. EAP aims are to help employees create a productive climate where their contributions promote the organization's mission. Our first obligation is to provide our clients the highest quality conflict resolution services, assisting them in their efforts to grow both personally and professionally. (UAMS) The staff with EAP will use mediators to resolve any conflict that is evident, for example, between manager and employee or two employees. This “counseling” is set up to attempt to resolve an conflict and have the parties involved make the resolution in a positive form so that the flow of the organization remains unaffected and productivity does not decline.

As part of an individual assessment I completed, my results were most evident to the conflict management styles of competing, collaborating and accommodating. In the competing style, I do not consciously display this style. I am very competitive though. I have been however through the years been able to transfer this style into one that will benefit my workplace and me. I do tend to use my competitiveness to get an edge over the “competition”. In the collaborating style, I use this style most of all. I often turn to my peers or colleagues that are trained in conflict management more so than I, as it relates to human resources issues to advise me of how their suggestions might aid me in making my decision so to avoid any infraction of policy. The final style that matches me in the management position is accommodating. I am very aware of this attribute. I want to make everyone happy; now, I now that is impossible but my theory is it does not hurt to try. I figure if I put forth the effort to accommodate the parties involved in a conflict by displaying that I have both of their interests in mind, then at least I have helped at least one of the parties find resolution. One the other hand I too have with any luck, helped the other party to see the understanding of where I was attempting to help and not hinder the situation.

This concludes my reflection on the five types of conflict management styles, the conflict management system that my organization uses and an summary of the individual styles in which I myself portray.

Schermerhorn, JR. University of Phoenix (Ed.). (2002). Organizational

Behavior [University of Phoenix Custom Edition e-text]. New York: Wiley.

UAMS website at Retrieved on October 27, 2003.