Introduction
The notion of leadership within any team has become one of the central matters of interest for human resource management researchers over the past years. However, while there exists a great variety of theoretical frameworks to apply to a specific context, many managers and leaders lack an understanding of which patterns are the most appropriate in terms of a situation. For this reason, there are many questions to face prior to deciding on the management technique, starting from the definition of leadership. According to Armstrong (2016), leadership is the process of making people act for the sake of positive outcomes in an encouraging, motivational, and secure manner. Moreover, leadership is also about making crucial decisions for the team, making conflict management an essential skill for the position. Thus, the primary goal of the following presentation is to present a practical way to employ conflict management skills within a team.
Conflict Management Choices
When speaking of a team, which is united with the common desire to achieve beneficial results, the distinct features of every individual within the setting is both an advantage and a challenge for the teamwork. The scope of its influence depends primarily upon the leader’s approach to conflict resolution. To begin with, it is important to outline some universally accepted conflict resolution techniques, including avoidance, accommodation, compromise, competition, and collaboration (Singh et al., 2016). While each of the aforementioned strategies makes sense in a given situation, the best options regarding the existing conflicts within the team are compromise and collaboration. For example, when talking about a team member who does not agree with the goals of the project, it is important to collaborate with him in order to hear some fresh ideas that might be actually integrated into the workflow. In such a way, each team member will benefit from the emerged conflict.
Collaboration and Consensus
The notion of collaboration is, by all means, a significant concept in terms of securing productive relationships in the team. However, frequently, this aspect is barely possible to achieve through the existing theoretical frameworks, as all the team members are individuals that require a specific approach. Thus, one of the most significant and beneficial strategies to resolve a conflict is to employ compromising, as this technique requires a great deal of autonomy and communication with each team member. The first thing to do when a conflict emerges is usually the establishment of a dialogue between the conflict parties in order to hear the issue concerned from all the possible perspectives. Only then, a decision is made considering the most appropriate resolution method. However, it goes without saying that such an extensive model is not applied all time, considering the limited timeframe for conflict resolution or the conflict’s implicitness that makes it difficult to spot the issue at the early stages.
Conflict Management Strategies
Resolving conflicts is an integral part of establishing proper collaboration pattern. Thus, regarding the situation emerged within a team, I decided that some of the most secure strategies to address would be the notions of mentoring and control. To begin with, mentoring stands for making one’s employees see a role model in their leader, pushing them beyond their comfort zone. Moreover, the process of guidance presupposes the ability to become a good advisor, encouraging members to consult me prior to being involved in a conflict. The notion of control, which frequently has a rather negative connotation, is correlated with the ability to communicate with the team on a regular basis. In such a way, any misunderstandings might be addressed before disrupting the workflow. In order to maintain the efficiency of the following strategies, some basic notions including feedback, respect for employees’ autonomy, and effort recognition are to become manager’s consistent duties.
Engagement
The work process, when followed by constant stress and inability to meet personal expectations, will never result in a successful and satisfying product. For this reason, it is of paramount importance to secure one’s engagement in the process by both organizational and job satisfaction. In order to achieve this, the leader is to make sure that everyone on the team is committed to something they truly enjoy doing by constantly keeping track of the employees’ satisfaction. Since quite often, conflicts in the workplace emerge from one’s implicit dissatisfaction with the team’s goal and personal duties, it is the leader’s responsibility to ensure proper symbiosis of three major engagement-building blocks: commitment, organizational citizenship, and motivation (Armstrong, 2016). Thus, for the sake of keeping the appropriate engagement level, my task as a leader is to make sure that everyone on the team is aware of his or her role in the overall project process.
Skills & Strategy Paradigm
Every leader is to develop a set of essential skills that directly contribute to the process of managing conflicts within the work ecosystem. Moreover, the existing skills and individual peculiarities later define the model of conflict management that complies with one’s personality and work expectations. When speaking of personal experience, the existing skills create a certain dissonance when compared to the chosen conflict management strategies. Some of my personal traits make me more likely to address the concepts of avoidance or accommodation, as I seem to naturally hide from potential conflict situations. However, the skill of taking responsibility does not allow me to avoid such precedents, as I am the one who secures the well-being of others. For this reason, it is crucial importance for me to develop some crucial skills as stress-resistance and determination in order to eliminate the subconscious conflict of interests in the future.
Conclusion
Conflict management is, by all means, one of the most challenging aspects of leadership. To become a successful leader, one is to make sure that the very notion of conflict is perceived as an opportunity rather than an unpleasant situation that should be avoided. In terms of the following presentation, an attempt was made to take a closer look at the issue through the case study application. As a result, it was established that out of the existing variety of conflict management strategies, collaboration, and compromise seems to be the most beneficial ones despite their complexity. Moreover, it was estimated that the notion of engagement and job satisfaction play one of the most significant roles in terms of conflict incidence reduction and creating a thriving working environment.
References
Armstrong, M. (2016). Armstrong’s handbook of management and leadership for HR: developing effective people skills for better leadership and management. Kogan Page Publishers.
Singh, S. K., Burgess, T. F., Heap, J., Messarra, L. C., Karkoulian, S., & El-Kassar, A. N. (2016). Conflict resolution styles and personality. International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, 65(6), 792-810.