Managing Workplace Conflict Essays Example

Workplace conflict refers to disagreement that happens between workers in an organization. Conflict can arise from personality differences or disagreements over tasks in the workplace. Even though conflict is unpleasant, it has both advantages and disadvantages. To begin with, conflict is disadvantageous because it causes stress on the employees involved, which may affect their performance at work. Conflicts may also affect the smooth flow of services between departments. When conflicts go unresolved, the employees who are on the receiving end may feel pressured and start looking for jobs elsewhere, which in turn affects the company.
Some advantages of conflicts in the workplace are that it exposes the weakness in the system, giving the opportunity to make corrections. Conflicts in the workplace may also help point out those employees who do not perform well, giving the organization an avenue to re-train or release some employees. When conflict is handled right, it may help forge unity of the team. Finally, conflict helps organizations to come up with new ideas on how to run things.
Constructive conflict is a conflict in which the benefits outweigh the costs; it results in productive, shared decisions that are mutually beneficial. In constructive conflicts, individuals collaborate to strengthen or redefine their relationship for the good of all the parties involved in the conflict. Relationship conflict on the other hand, often flows from short-sighted defined or rigid goals. Often this relationship conflict results in negative outcomes. The parties involved assume a win-lose strategy i.e. the opposing party has to suffer defeat.
During a constructive conflict the following strategies maybe used to minimize relationship conflict: Cohesive team strategy; this is where all the involved parties are persuaded to embrace togetherness even in the face of the conflict. Supportive team norms strategy where the leader supports the conflicting parties to give their point of views without victimization. Finally, emotional intelligence strategy where the leader seeks to understand the emotions of all the involved parties without judging them.