Chapter 4: Uncovering Styles of Conflict Management

Human capital and knowledge workers are the foundation of organizations and knowledge-based economies.¹ Post-COVID-19 era has caused a complete transformation in the workplace dynamics.² In such a scenario, engagement of employees in the workplace becomes challenging.³ What is our propensity to handle conflict plays an important role in ensuring organizational effectiveness?⁴ Do we prefer to run away from problems, face them head-on, compete to win, or try to find a workable solution to satisfy everyone? Conflict management styles are the diverse ways or strategies, people employ to address disagreements, disputes, or conflicts in various contexts. These techniques can differ based on an individual’s personality, communication abilities, cultural background, and the nature of the issue itself.⁵ Understanding and describing how others would react in a problematic scenario and how we would respond is required to cope with conflict. Each of us has a primary conflict resolution style.⁶ Human resource managers often find themselves busy and devote much time to managing conflicts. However, understanding and analyzing conflict management style helps us better understand behavior of employees and determine the best approach to manage workforce.⁷ It can also assist us in deliberately choosing how to react in a conflict and how to lessen stress and competition at work.