Personality and Conflict Managing Style

According to the most recent data from the American Institute of Stress, 41 percent of those surveyed said that their workplace stress stems from being overworked. You might not be surprised by this, considering how most industries are short-staffed these days.

Would you like to reduce workplace stress caused by “people issues?” One way to improve workplace stress is to better understand personality and conflict management styles. We’re going to break this down into these five styles:

• Accommodator
• Avoider
• Collaborator
• Competitor
• Compromiser

Along with these, we will also go into how you can develop conflict handling styles, in order to help understand your coworkers and develop the proper communication skills essential to anybody who has to work with others. 

Five Main Conflict Management Styles

Even though researchers have divided conflict management styles into five categories, no person fits perfectly in one category. But generally speaking, here are the different ways people deal with workplace issues.

Accommodator Style

Characteristics of an Accommodator: Accommodators may be less assertive and highly cooperative. They tend to avoid conflict and have a strong desire to be liked by others.

An accommodator can sometimes fall into people-pleasing tendencies, which end up being detrimental in the long run, and true collaboration is not possible. A good way to reduce people pleasing is by knowing your boundaries. Resolving a conflict, while also maintaining a relationship, generally involves some form of negotiation. Knowing clearly what your minimum requirements and boundaries are will help you recognize the areas where you are more flexible

Avoider Style

Characteristics of an Avoider: Avoiders tend to be unassertive and uncooperative. When individuals use this strategy, they tend to give up personal goals to avoid conflict.

If you find yourself giving up your personal goals to avoid conflict, one way to fix this conflict handling style is by knowing your values. We generally engage in conflict about the things we care about. Understanding your own core values will help you anticipate what might push your buttons and cause you to feel conflict. Being able to talk about your values and their importance can help you manage yourself and others in a conflict.

Collaborator Style

Characteristics of a Collaborator: Collaborators are both goal- and relationship-oriented. This allows both sides of the conflict to receive what they need and leave the conflict feeling content.

Developing a conflict resolution style such as a collaborator starts by learning the values of others. Understanding another person’s values can help you anticipate what might push their buttons. Sometimes, you can choose to avoid a conflict simply by recognizing that a conflict represents something important to them that you don’t feel strongly about. Let someone else “win” simply by not engaging.

Competitor Style

Characteristics of a Competitor: The competitor tends to be highly assertive and uncooperative. Competitors value individual goals over relationships. Individuals that prefer this style tend to be commanding, intimidating and have a need to win.

You must willfully shift your position to reinforce shared goals. Don’t view your teammates as opponents, but resources to achieve your shared objectives. Identify points of agreement, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, and build on those. Expand on them until you produce a platform on which you can find true growth.

Compromiser Style

Characteristics of a Compromiser: The compromiser is assertive and highly cooperative. This style tends to be more concerned with the collective goal rather than their own goal.

If you want to be a better leader and conflict manager, challenge your own belief system daily – one issue at a time. Make sure that you don’t just think things, but know exactly what you think and why you think it. Too often we believe things very strongly for weak reasons. Exploring our own beliefs and testing them helps us to understand not just our own beliefs and thought processes, but the beliefs and thought processes of others!

How to Resolve Conflict with Improved Communication

Acknowledge workplace conflict and communicate a desire to resolve the situation. Don’t let workplace conflict fester. Leaders should address conflict immediately, or the situation could escalate. Communicate a commitment to working with employees in conflict towards joint resolution.

Listen but don’t take sides. Most employees want to be valued and being heard is important to them. The first step in resolving conflict is to listen. If multiple people are involved, gather them together and give everyone a chance to speak. It is a good opportunity for all parties to hear all sides and gain a full understanding of the conflict.  

Ask those in conflict for solutions. Often people in conflict look to others to resolve their problems and to mediate. Asking employees to offer solutions gives them an opportunity to grow their emotional intelligence and communicate better with whom they conflict. Help by mediating a mutually agreeable resolution.

Encourage teamwork. When employee’s complete successful projects together it creates an experience of shared accomplishment and camaraderie. Reward cooperation and teamwork by sharing their success company wide. Positive public encouragement can be a strong motivator.

Systematically reviewing what is important to you in a conflict, and what style will benefit you the most in the near-term and long-term, will help you plan ahead for all the pirates you may encounter throughout the year!

What Training Courses on Emotional Intelligence and Communication are Available? 

One of the goals of Pryor Learning is to help workers feel more confident and successful in the workplace. That’s why we offer courses about personality types and conflict management styles to develop your conflict resolution styles and become the best team player you could be.

Consider enrolling in How to Handle Emotionally Charged Situations in the Workplace. In this training, you learn how to face confrontation head-on and transform competition into cooperation. This is the perfect class to help repair damaged relationships.

Or maybe you could benefit from learning how to deal with difficult people. Learn the strategies for working with know-it-alls, dictators and gripers.

Does conflict make you uncomfortable and you tend to avoid it? If so, you might benefit from confronting workplace conflict and feel more confident in coming to a solution even if the situation seems impossible.