Introduction
Conflict is the disagreement or difference of opinions between or among individuals that can be potentially harmful to any organization. In the workplace, it often involves personal agendas, insights, or goals rather than those of the group or team. Conflict management seeks to resolve disagreements or conflicts with outcomes that satisfy all individuals involved or that benefit the group. However, the perception of conflict is often negative.
Conflict can, in fact, be positive when managed properly. Conflict can foster team-building, critical thinking, new ideas, and alternative resolutions. Conflict management is a crucial competency that leaders must possess for the success of the teams, groups, units, or employees they lead.[1][2][3][4]
Function
Providing conflict management skills could help future managers develop their emotional intelligence. Excellent communication skills allow the manager to resolve interpersonal situations and conflicts. Mentoring new leaders is vital for bridging generational gaps and shaping the organization's culture. Mentoring can help a new leader navigate the organizational hierarchy and develop a leadership style that fits well within the charted course.[5][6][7]
Leadership style plays a role in conflict resolution and overall team dynamics.
Leadership Styles
To prevent or limit conflict, leadership should seek the proper and impartial implementation of a professional code of conduct, ground rules, and discipline.[8] Leadership is a process by which one person or a group sets the purpose or direction for others and helps them achieve goals. Leadership styles in healthcare were found to be strongly correlated with quality of care and patient outcomes, including 30-day mortality, safety, injuries, patient satisfaction, and pain. Leadership styles that proved more effective emphasized a collaborative, multifaceted, and dynamic process.[9][10][11][12]
Servant Leader and Lean Leader
A servant-leader aspires to lead by servitude and ensures the needs of others are a priority. Servant leaders focus on the needs and growth of others, putting their well-being first, rather than their self-interests. This leadership style reflects a sharing of power, enabling others to perform at a higher level for personal growth. Servant leadership may provide the means to develop Lean leaders in the organization. The lean management style focuses on improving processes and eliminating waste. Lean and servant leadership can be combined to achieve high-quality, cost-effective, patient-centered care.[13]
Transformational Leader
Transformational leaders assist individuals in the process of transformation, where their own beliefs and values support or align with the organization's values. A transformational leader fosters an environment of trust, relationship-building to meet common goals, and the sharing of innovative ideas or a long-term vision for the organization.
Transformative leaders can develop a trusting relationship with their followers or team members, thus influencing their actions. The effect is a trickle-down outcome of conflict resolution in an environment built on mutual trust, enabling individuals to mold their responses to conflicts or stressors for the greater good of the organization and the population served. An ability to manage conflict effectively is a quality of a transformative leader. This leadership style is a positive contributor to safety climate.[14]
Laissez-Faire Leader
Laissez-faire leaders leave the decision-making to their followers or team members, lacking absolute authority within their organization, but are responsible for group decisions and actions. The leader trusts the individual members of the team to problem-solve, create new projects, set and meet goals, and self-monitor. This leadership style requires no honest feedback, oversight, direct leadership, discipline, or praise. Thus, productivity may be low among some members of the group, leading to a source of conflict. This style was shown to contribute to unit socialization and a culture of blame negatively.[14]
Authoritarian Leader
Authoritarian leaders lead by dictating and controlling the group's actions and decision-making. This leadership style reflects choices made based on their ideas, judgments, and personal beliefs, not those of their employees. Authoritarian leaders lead by enforcement and welcome little input from their team members or followers.
Expecting a job to be done, focusing on tasks rather than the individuals performing them, and the inability to accept input and give positive feedback create an environment lacking in trust. Team members are not trusted, nor empowered to resolve conflicts on their own. Thus, the team dynamic may suffer in the long term. Staff turnover is directly related to the inability to manage disputes and to promote an environment that fosters positive growth and resolves conflicts. Nevertheless, the autocratic style is considered ideal in emergencies, when the leader makes all decisions without considering the staff's opinions.[12]
Transactional Leader
A transactional leader is primarily focused on workflow. This leadership style may concentrate on incentives for "getting the job done" in a timely, efficient manner. Rewards for completing work on time or ahead of schedule, or penalties (disciplinary action) if the job is delayed, are components of this leadership style. These leaders may fail to plan for the organization's future, focusing only on the demands of the present. This leadership style may fail to promote and implement creative and innovative ideas necessary in a rapidly evolving health care industry.
Visionary Leader
A visionary leader has a vision or long-term goal. These leaders possess insight, imagination, and passion related to an innovative goal or idea. They are always looking out for the best interests of the team, promoting the sharing of ideas, creative goals, and a sense of empowerment to go beyond expectations and create the unexpected.
A visionary leader fosters a healthy relationship with their team. Promoting entrepreneurial ideas and visions for the future, thus facilitating a strong team dynamic capable of managing conflicts through open communication in a positive, non-adversarial manner.
Issues of Concern
Conflict Management Styles (Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Modes)
Conflict management styles take many forms and may reflect a particular leadership style.
Avoidance
In this style of conflict management, some or all people involved in the conflict avoid the situation or ignore its existence. For the individuals involved, this is a losing situation in the long run. The conflict is unresolved. It continues to fester and build, creating more conflict. However, this style may help temporarily de-escalate a very tense, non-emergency situation.
Accommodative
In this style of conflict management, one party wins and one party loses. One opinion is accepted, and the other opinion is lost. The resolution will benefit one person rather than all involved. For the person who manages the conflict, this becomes a sore spot and causes resentment. Although it may resolve the dispute, it may not satisfy all the parties involved.
Competitive
In this style of conflict management, one party wins and the other loses. It will resolve the situation, but will not promote a unified or team approach to solving problems.
Compromise
In this style of conflict management, neither party will be fully satisfied. The result will harbor resentment between those involved. In the resolution, each person sacrifices a portion of their solution. A significant part of the resolution can be left out, and the best outcome may not prevail.
Collaborative
In this style of conflict management, all parties involved are brought together for a resolution. Active listening, respectful communication, and an open mind are incorporated into the solution process for the best outcome. All parties involved have a say and reach a solution. This solution is accepted as the best outcome for all involved.
Steps To Conflict Management
Before communication begins, set rules for respectful communication.
Ask all involved to set aside preconceived opinions about each other.
Ask all parties to engage in active listening without interruption.
Ask all parties to write down the problem. Then restate the problem out loud. This provides understanding and agreement about the problem causing the conflict.
Ask each party to propose a solution.
Discuss each solution and the positive and negative aspects of each proposed solution.
Clinical Significance
Resolution of conflicting views is of paramount importance in assuring that patients receive the best care possible. As such, it is important for healthcare providers to work together to achieve conflict resolution.
Enhancing Healthcare Team Outcomes
Respectful communication among all health care staff is the anchor to preventing conflicts. An interprofessional team must never lose sight of the collective overarching goal of excellent patient care. When conflicts arise, team cohesion is enhanced by a collaborative, timely resolution.
