Conflict Management Styles

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Conflict Management Styles

• Patricia Lipinski, R.N., B.S.N.

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Styles

• Competition
• Accommodation
• Avoidance
• Compromise
• Collaboration

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Competition

• Adversarial style
• Focuses on your perspective
• Can include a willingness to understand
• May have an attitude of respect for others
• Winner takes all win-lose situation

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Dominant Style

• Focus on task or goals and well organized
• Committed to your own perspective
• Expect others to come forward with their
  viewpoint
• Fear loss of control when undermined/overtaken
• Focus on what you want
• Defending your own position

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When to Use Competition

• Respond quickly and decisively
• When delivering an unpopular decision
• To protect yourself from those who would take
  advantage of a cooperative approach

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Accommodation

• Focuses on the needs of others
• Behaviors range from quick capitulation to a
  willingness to give in after exploration
• Adversarial tone created by seeming to agree but
  then displaying other behaviors
• Giving in results in lose-win situation

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Dominant Style

• Are non-competitive
• Flexible, tolerant and harmonizing
• Neglect your concerns to satisfy concerns of
  others
• Self-sacrificing
• More concerned with being liked and getting along
  than being right
• Do more than your share

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When to Use Accommodation

• Realize your wrong and want to be open
• Goodwill gesture - issue is important to others
• Preserving the relationship is more important

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Avoidance

• Focuses you away from conflict
• Includes
• Belligerent unwillingness to talk
• Hesitation to discuss issues
• Attempt to smooth things over when differences
  appear
• Lose-lose approach

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Dominant style

• Appear to ignore conflict situations
• Dont pursue your concerns or those of others
• Back away from conflict situations
• Postpone conflict
• Believe in time conflict will go away
• Anxious when confronted with conflict

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When to Use Avoidance

• Need time to gather facts or think about
  situation
• Allow emotions to cool down
• Perceive there is no chance to satisfy your
  concerns
• Potential damage of confronting conflict
  outweighs the benefit of resolution

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Compromise

• Focuses on trying to satisfy both parties
• May result in surface solutions
• Does not get to heart of the matter
• Range from positional stances to more flexible
  approaches
• Win/lose and win/lose situation for both sides

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Dominant Style

• Search for expedient, mutually acceptable
  solutions
• Prefer quick and practical resolutions to issues
• Believe if both parties give something up, it is
  fair to both

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When to Use Compromise

• Goals of both parties are moderately important
  but not worth pushing too hard to achieve
• Provide a temporary solution
• Expedites a solution when under pressure
• When two parties of equal power are committed to
  achieving a mutually exclusive goals

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Collaboration

• Focuses on satisfying both parties
• Cooperative in nature
• Both parties tend to persist when there is
  chance of success
• Often a slow process
• Not appropriate
• in all cases
• Win/win situation

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Dominate Style

• Are non-avoiding
• Identify concerns of both parties and find
  alternatives
• Curious about others underlying motives and
  needs
• Open to exchange insights and work toward
  creative solutions
• Believe outcomes of negotiation will be best
  solution

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When to Use Collaboration

• Objective is to learn more about the other party
• Provide a creative solution to both sets of
  needs, concerns
• Both parties are committed to merging both views
  and
• interests

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Nurse Processes Conflict

• Disbelief
• Disconnectedness
• Obsession with situation
• Frenzied activity
• Self evaluation
• Crucial turning point
• Balance or burnout
• Purposeful alienation