Question

As we have learned this week, conflict is not always a bad thing. In fact, conflict can bring about positive outcomes if managed correctly.

1. Using your place of employment, business, firm, or organization, discuss how the conflict could actually benefit your organization. When doing so, discuss how the conflict could serve as a means of solving problems and bring about positive change.
2. Also, discuss how your management and leadership skill could help in the conflict and negotiation processes in a way that would be beneficial to all parties involved. Be very specific, and if possible, use real-life examples.

Please be sure to validate your opinions and ideas with citations and references in APA format.

Answer 1

While conflicts are often viewed in negative light, there are conflicts in workplace which can be positive and provide increase productivity, result and benefit the organization in the long run.

We work in a small organization, a start-up, with a comparatively flat hierarchy. Naturally there are a lot of conflicts at workplace. However, some of these conflicts have actually provided us with good solutions in the long run. For example, a few months ago, there was a conflict of opinion between the marketing and the sales team where each wanted to focus on different process to increase the revenue. Since we could not have decided on the spot, we decided to divide our potential customer base and apply both the method. In one, the marketing team was took the initiatives and in the other, the sales team did. Needless to say, we eventually found a process that is a mix of the two and have become a more efficient business focused team in the process. This is a result of a positive conflict.

In such situation Laissez-Faire leadership style (Lewin K, 1930) is most applicable and using this, we managed to provide freedom and flexibility to the two parties. Conflicts between two departments can often be tricky and unless they each feel that they have certain control, the conflict could turn into a negative one. Thus in the above situation, our leadership position was to attempt to steer the conflict into a positive direction.