Conflict management styles are styles in which a person uses to control the diversity and differences of a group. They are used to manage conflict. While critiquing conflict management styles, I have decided to focus on the one I use the most. I try to avoid contention, disaccord, and strife. The style that follows the rules of avoidance is the non-confrontation conflict management style. I use this style more often than not because I prefer peace, stability, and harmony instead of animosity, opposition, and dispute. I tend to sit back and let whatever agreements come to pass as long as it morally right and do not hinder the group, or individuals of that group. I realized that this management style allows the group to be able to decide and make decisions for themselves. It gives them a sense of positive self esteem. I understand that no one style will be used by all persons, and I have to admit that I’m working with others that use different styles of conflict managements. Some difficulties that I have with a person who utilizes the controlling conflict management style is that they tend to be a bit pushy. A controlling style does not care for the opinion of others and what input they may have about a situation. There are advantages and disadvantages in using the non-confrontation conflict management style. One advantage is that being laid back allows me to sit and think about what is to be said. It allows time to give structure to a response or rebuttal to what is at hand. Another advantage of using the non-confrontation style is that agreeing with another group members could easily repair broken relationships. A disadvantage of the non-confrontation conflict management style is that if there is something that is truly on a person’s mind then that thought would probably not get heard.
This paper will explain and critique conflict management style. It will describe at least three conflict management styles, which conflict management style do I personally use most frequently and why I do. It will also describe the difficulties I have dealt with others who use different conflict management styles then me. I will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each conflict management style. Finally I will describe conflict avoidance and its interrelationship with conflict management. The first of four conflict styles I will discuss is “avoidance.” When some people use or prefer this type of conflict management style, he or she tries to ignore any conflict or disagreement that may either concern them directly or indirectly. When avoidance is chosen often time it is not successful in the end because eventually everyone must face what is before them whether it is something they want to face. According to Gannon, S., Roche, B., Kantar, J. W. & Forsyth, J.P., Linehan, C. (2011) “It is now argued that crucial to developing a more sophisticated account that can accommodate instances of apparently “unconditioned” anxiety is the observation that verbally able humans have been shown to derive relations among stimuli, and that neutral stimuli can gain both eliciting and discriminative functions without direct training with little difficulty.” The next style is “accommodation.” Accommodation is often times used for many of the same reasons that avoidance is used. Many people do not like to face conflict so instead they prefer to accommodate everyone else to avoid any chance at conflict. When one accommodates others, they never say what they think or feel which can eventually make him or her turn into an angry person. An accommodating person can become so angry that they refuse to help or aide others when their help is truly needed. Mainly because he or she feels taken advantage of even if it is by their own choice, the choice is often to
