Conflict Management Styles
Good people management skills require good conflict Management skills. Selction of conflict management styles may vary as per situation but each person tends to follow his/her own preffered style of conflict management over other styles with some modification as per the situation.
If there are people, there will be conflict. Conflict is mere disagreement by one person with views and interest of other person. We generally consider conflict as a dispute but conflict is not a dispute but can give birth to dispute if not managed well. Conflict generally arise because of different viewpoints and difference of opinions.
We witness conflicts during business meetings and business conversations. There are different conflict management styles people follow or use primarily and that is called as that person’s conflict management style.
There are following conflict management styles as per Thomas Killmann Conflict Model:
- Collaborating
- Compromising
- Competing
- Accommodating
Collaborating: Collaborator generally tries to identify areas of concerns between the other person and self & tries to achieve win-win situation for self and other involved parties. As collaborator creates win-win situation the collaborator is a good team player and always ensures success of team as a whole. Collaborator always thinks what is beneficial to the team and convinces others to work for the benefit of everybody. Collaborator tries to maintain good relations with each team member (functional or cross functional). Collaborator sometimes takes strong stands if he/she strongly believes that whatever he/she is proposing is for the benefit of all but he/she tries to convince in the nicer way and by creating dispute.
Compromising: Compromiser generally puts down his/her goals and may take popular stand to make other person happy while maintaining some/ equal beneficial situation for self. Compromiser doesn’t stand strong at any situations; he/she amends his/her behaviour so as to avoid any unwelcome situations.
Competing: Competing person generally puts his/her own wishes over others and always tries to win in every situation. It is very dominant style of conflict management and generally uses authority over others to make them agree on the viewpoints of self. If person has no authority over the other people even, then the competing person tries to tell importance of his/her viewpoints and ignores other person’s viewpoints.
Avoiding: People with avoiding style always prefer to avoid conversation or debates to ensure they don’t have bad time. This people generally try not to meet other people if they sense conflict situation.
Accommodating: Accommodating people generally agree with viewpoints of each and every person and care more intensely about interpersonal relations than mutual benefits of their own and others viewpoints.