Conflict usually appears in any workplace mainly among those people with various personalities and responsibilities who have to work together. In fact, you can even experience conflict between individual employees, groups, and members of management. However, it is necessary to resolve and manage conflict so as to continue the workspace as a collaborative and positive environment where employees are productive and happy at work. This article is all about the facts of conflict resolution and management skills, the use of conflict resolution skills in the workspace, and how to improve these skills as well given below.

What Do Conflict Resolution & Management Skills Refer to?

Conflict resolution skills & conflict management skills refer to the capabilities that assist you in managing or resolving the conflicts that affect you no matter if it is about the workplace or those you work with. Being that conflict is unavoidable, the conflict management skills in the workplace focus on making conflict a valuable part of the workspace so that the individuals with skills can get into an environment where conflict is accepted, used, and managed positively. However, it is important to know the causes of conflict in a relationship which are given below.

Conflict usually arises when differences take place no matter small or large. It usually happens whenever people disagree with their motivations, desires, ideas, values, or perceptions. Everyone has a deep personal need when a conflict triggers strong feelings. The needs are nothing but to feel secure and safe or valued and respected and the need for greater intimacy and closeness. 

In the long-term success of relationships, the requirement of every individual plays a crucial role. Everyone deserves consideration and respect. Understanding different needs are important in personal relationships otherwise it may lead to break-ups, arguments, and distance whereas, in the workspace, it might lead to lost jobs, decreased profits, and broken deals. 

How Can You Respond to Dispute or Conflict?

Are you afraid of conflict or want to avoid it at all costs? If your perception of the dispute appears from painful memories from previous unhealthy relationships or early childhood, you might expect a bad ending of disagreements. You might find conflict as humiliating, demoralizing, or anything else to fear. If your early bad experience of life had left you out of control or feeling powerless, conflict might even be disturbing for you and if you fear conflict, it can turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy. When you get into a situation of conflict that has already made you feel threatened, it is complicated to deal with the issue right away in a healthy way, instead, you would become angrier or react in another way. 

Healthy Responses to Conflict

• The ability to identify the other individual's viewpoint
• Respectful, non-defensive, and calm reaction
• The potential to avoid punishing and seek compromise
• A belief of facing conflict head is a good thing for both sides
• A willingness to forget and forgive without holding anger and resentments

Unhealthy Responses to Conflict 

• Resentful, hurtful, angry, and explosive reactions
• An inability to respond and recognize the things that matter to other individuals
• Expecting a bad outcome, avoiding conflict, or feeling fearful
• An inability to see the other side of the person and compromise
• Resulting in rejection, withdrawal of love, fear of abandonment, shaming, and isolation

Skills Required to Manage and Resolve Conflicts

There are various skills that you can build to resolve and manage conflicts in the workspace. When the below-given skills combine, you can adopt the best conflict management in your workplace without allowing it to affect the workplace negatively. 

Actively Paying Attention

When you implement active hearing, you make others know that you are interested to hear what they want to say and their thoughts are crucial for you to understand. When you pay attention actively, it shows involvement and respect by looking into the eye of the other person, nodding your head, and then comprehending their thoughts in a moment just prior to asking questions or responding. Taking time to listen to others actively simply means that you are interested to hear others' perspectives for managing conflicts better.  

Adopting Empathy

Empathy is nothing but the ability to understand and share the feelings of others. When you practice empathy, it helps you to understand the needs, goals, and motivations of your counterpart. Also, you are able to understand their pain points as well. Some people already have this skill so some have to develop this skill by asking questions, providing feedback, building trust, perceiving a different viewpoint, and being open to differences in opinion. 

Positive Attitude

It is always good to maintain a positive attitude as it assists you to work and process through conflict. A positive attitude helps you identify the mistakes that occur hence, you can make it clear how to prevent conflict over it and go ahead.

Effective Communication

Effective communication is one of the most crucial skills you should have to manage and resolve conflicts effectively. It includes a straightforward yet friendly way of speaking to other members at the time of a conflict. It even means speaking precisely and clearly with a view to getting rid of any miscommunication. 

Level-headedness

It is essential to be level-headed as you can control your emotions in the workspace. This skill would help you to keep a dispute from getting worse unnecessarily. This way, you are able to handle the conflict with a calm attitude that works with conflict. If you do not have this skill, the conflicts can grow and become more intense that cannot be resolved easily. 

Problem-solving

A lot of worse conflicts happen because of the lack of skill of problem-solving. With this skill, you can rise with a creative solution that works well for the members engaged in the conflict. For showing problem-solving skills, you have to just introduce solutions to the problem, perceive the underlying issue, collaborate with others, and then offer a good solution. 

What are the Ways to Show Conflict Management Skills in the Workspace?

Below are given some of the ways that you can exhibit your skills of conflict management in the workplace:

Perceive Body Language

You can observe the body language of others and get clues from them. You might be able to perceive if they are happy, upset, mad, or frustrated by just noticing whether they roll their eyes, cross their arms, or show any other movements that explain their feeling. Moreover, you should make sure to know how others would understand your body language.

Be Open to Discussion

You should show the readiness to discuss the situation and circumstances you are involved in to manage conflict. Open discussions are one of the important parts of managing and resolving a conflict so the workspace would be affected negatively by the conflict. This practice even helps all the people to understand the perspective of each other and feel comfortable sharing their own views.

Reference the Company Values

When working through a conflict, everyone who gets hired should understand the company values. Company values work as a reminder of the type of culture the business is attempting to build and all the individuals in the organization have a responsibility to adhere to company policy.

Be Impartial

By remaining impartial, you can manage conflict effectively even if the dispute is between a new employee and a close friend. Impartiality simply means the ability to discover a way and advocate for what is right in a specific situation throughout the conflict.

Be Patient

It is very essential to maintain patience with everyone you are talking with about a potential or present conflict to manage conflict. Patience plays an important role to hear the point of view of everyone and it even helps you to take the essential time and steps to handle the conflict moving forward. It even keeps you away from conflicts. 

How to Boost Conflict Management Skills?

Now here you can check out the ways to improve your conflict management skills right below:

Signup for a Workshop: You can discover a lot of workshops and classes in conflict management undertaken by experts for which you can sign up. They would even offer you the required tools that help you to approach conflicts in the workspace and handle them properly.

Ask for Feedback: While you are handling the conflict management process, you should ask your superior for feedback on how you are managing the situation. They would offer you tips on how to better approach conflict management in the coming days.

Collaborate: Collaborating with others plays a vital role when it comes to boosting your conflict management skills. When you know the importance of collaborating and have past experience in it, you would feel more comfortable while operating with others on discovering solutions and resolving issues to move ahead with. 

Carry out a Role-playing Exercise: Role-playing is usually applicable to enhance the skills of conflict management as it lets you present yourself in the situation of someone else. By introducing role-playing, you would be more aware of the feeling of someone in a particular position which would further assist you to perceive the customers you support and the people you work with.  

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References:

https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/conflict-management-skills

https://www.helpguide.org/articles/relationships-communication/conflict-resolution-skills.htm

https://www.managementstudyguide.com/conflict-management-skills.htm

https://www.eaglesflight.com/blog/top-5-skills-needed-to-successfully-resolve-conflicts-in-the-workplace