Conflict Management within Teams
Conflict within teams or in the workplace is inevitable and could happen on a daily basis.
How you manage or resolve these conflicts could improve team relationships and enrich
the team productivity. Everybody has their preferred style of dealing with conflict, but
individual approaches will vary depending on the conflict at hand. However you deal with
the conflict you should try to find the balance between satisfying your concerns and
satisfying the concerns of others in the team.
Conflicts exist in our teams for several reasons: there are personality clashes, we have to
cope with aggressive personalities or we experience role conflict from high expectations.
We can categorize the many sources of conflict into three terms of external factors, internal
factors and the behavior of others. External factors are those conflicts that surround and
impact the team such as equipment not working properly or deadlines that need to be met.
Internal factors are conflicts that exist within the team such as working extra hours
(flexibility) or different core values. The behavior of others within a team such as
disrespect, judgmental comments or offensive language can lead to major conflicts.
There is neither bad nor good conflict, but how the team deals with it can be constructive
or destructive. Destructive conflict is when teams constantly complain, have loud
arguments amongst each other or behavior that causes hostility. This could be a very bad
thing especially with the potential to disband the team permanently. Constructive conflict
is when everyone voices their disagreements openly without reprisal. This type of conflict
can make your team stronger. Teams use constructive conflict to their advantage will work
well together because members of the team no matter what your group status is, whether
you are an Executive or an Office clerk, you can voice your opinion without fearing losing
your job. (Littlejohn & Domenici, 2001, pp. 94-103)
To resolve many conflict issues within a group any member will choose a style that will
best suit the situation. Situations will change from day to day and so will the solutions
depending on the team member facing them. There are five conflict styles to use when
defusing a conflict situation. Thefirst is avoidance where a team member may not want to
help the team accomplish its goals. Other team members may act like there is nothing
wrong and no conflict exists because they do not want to bring up a controversial issue.
