Conflict management in human service is extremely important for leaders to be able to sustain effective and efficient workplace culture. There are five basic types of conflict management styles, including competing, accommodating, compromising, avoiding, and collaborating (McShane, n.d.). According to the self assessment tool provided by the McShane (n.d.) I can equally effectively collaborate and compromise to solve conflicts. This implies that I am relatively flexible in my attempts to solve the problem and I always want to make the opinion of the opposing party count. However, such conflict management style is associated requires much time to solve a problem, which may be unavailable in some situations. Thus, even though my preferred conflict management style is flexible, it remains situational. The strengths and weaknesses of my conflict management style can be better understood using an example.
The limitations of the approach can be seen in the situation with Stacey and John described in Hart City Scenario 8. In this scenario, John wanted to give Stacey a present for provision of job finding services, which is prohibited in by the organization’s rules. In this situation, compromising is inappropriate, as one cannot compromise on organizational standards. The only approach I feel like using in the situation is collaboration. If I were to solve the problem, I would ask John to visit the Community Center and have a three-way conversation. I would explain that presents are prohibited; however, if John wanted to express his gratitude, he could make a donation to the organization. I would also allow them to find another solution to the problem. While this approach may minimize the conflict and leave everyone somewhat satisfied, it has a definite flaw, as it is very time-consuming. It would be more efficient to just state that presents are prohibited and inform John personally about this decision. Even though this may have led to client’s and employee’s dissatisfaction, it would be appropriate if there is no time available to solve the problem in a different way.
The strengths of my approach, however, can be best observed when analyzing the second case scenario with James and Dan. In the situation, James has recently been promoted to a service coordinator, which caused Dan to start frustrating James in different ways. The only reasonable approach to solve the problem here is to collaborate with participation of the third party, the leader of the organization. It is obvious here that Dan is not mad with James, as he had probably thought that he was a better candidate to become a service coordinator. However, there may be some other subtle reasons for the unprofessional behavior. Therefore, I would act as a mediator in the conversation without trying to overuse my authority. This approach will leave both parties satisfied and ensure effective relationship in the future. Collaboration would be the best approach in the situation even if there was not enough time, as resolving the issue would be crucial for the Community Center’s effectiveness as a unit. Thus, saving time by forcing a solution to solve this issue would not be an appropriate.
The analysis provided above demonstrates that my approach to conflict resolution is not always optimal, as I always wish to spend much time on the issue to leave all the parties satisfied. This strategy may become a problem in the situation when the organization has limited time resources and needs to work under pressure. Thus, my primary limitation is the inability to balance between parties’ satisfaction and achieving goals of the organization, which may limit my ability to become a leader. In order to address this limitation, I plan to learn the best practices concerning leading human service organizations to ensure the best outcomes for clients and employees.
Reference
McShane, S. (n.d.). Conflict management style orientation scale. McGraw Hill. Web.