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’s 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 constructi ...