Conflict in Organizations Conflict Management

Conflict in Organizations Conflict Management in Organizations Conflict within an organization is not necessarily bad, and can act as a powerful catalyst to move a company forward to its objectives, overcoming both market limitations and competitors in the process. The sources of conflict within an organization can be behavioral, organizational and structural with a lack of goal clarity and communication often accelerating differences.

Human Resource (HR) professionals need to champion the transfer of conflict management skills to each level of an organization to ensure that the skills and insights needed become engrained in the company's culture (Guttman, 2009). Analyzing Conflict Management Strategies Each organization needs to have a core set of conflict management skills, insights and programs in place that are regularly taught to each management layer of the company (Dionne, Yammarino, Atwater, Spangler, 2004).

HR needs to champion the development and teaching of active listening techniques, support for assertiveness training, and depersonalizing exercises to ensure that managers and staff have a strong inventory if techniques to draw from (Guttman, 2009). Yet HR cannot do this alone, they need to have the support of leaders throughout the organization for conflict management initiatives and techniques to be effective. The ownership of conflict management needs to be with the senior management teams, each layer of management and throughout the supervisory ranks of the organization (Guttman, 2009).

One of the most effective approaches to managing conflict is to invest in leadership training programs that seek to grow the transformational leaders who have the ability to manage conflict effectively through communication and emotional intelligence-based insights (Carmeli, Atwater, Levi, 2011). The combining of HR expertise and transformational leadership is very effective for minimizing disruptions from conflict while also preserving the development of effective leadership strategies at the same time.

This shared aspect of conflict management in organizations assures that the benefits of conflict contribute to the long-term goal attainment of the company. In keeping with the collaboration of HR and leaders across the organization, more communicative, open structures to conflict resolution perform more effectively than autocratic ones (Carmeli, Atwater, Levi, 2011). The ability to emerge from conflict with greater trust is a major difference between transactional, autocratic or transformational leaders managing conflict resolution strategies.

The idea is to use conflict as a galvanizing force in getting the organization to its goals. Autocratic approaches to this strategy rarely work and often fail to take into account he specific needs and perceptions of those involved (Guttman, 2009). What is needed is a more developmental, transformational-based approach to conflict resolution, one that allows each side to take ownership of the end result (Carmeli, Atwater, Levi, 2011).

Conclusion Conflict management is a shared responsibility between the leaders of an organization and the HR professionals advising them on techniques and approaches (Guttman, 2009). The best conflict resolution approaches are based on transformational leadership first, and also.