Workplace Conflict: Thoughts and Experiences

Beginning when I was fifteen years old, I got my first job as a swim instructor at a waterpark. After working there for nearly four years before I left for college, I climbed my way up to an assistant manager position. During my time working, I got to know and work with a large number of fellow employees throughout the years. When there is many employees working at one time during a shift, naturally there is a possibility for conflict. Year in and year out, there was always a large number of young employees starting each season, each with their own style of conflict. Through my years of working, I was able to get a first-hand experience of what each of the five conflict styles were like and the effect they had on the workplace.

The accommodating conflict style is one that was quite commonly seen with newer employees. During the first few months of working, new employees were commonly seen as accommodating because they were new to the working environment. For the most part, these employees would neglect their own needs for the satisfaction of another employee because they did not want to start of the job on anyone’s “bad side.” It is understandable that most new workers were accommodating because, like I experienced when I started working, it’s not uncommon to be nervous or shy when introduced to a workplace full of people who already know one another.

As a worker becomes more settled in to the workplace environment, they become more comfortable. This is where conflict styles begin to develop in new employees, after working for a month or two. The most identifiable conflict style, but in my experience not the most common, is competitive. Some people naturally possess a certain assertiveness in their personality, while lacking the sense for cooperation. I can recall a few people with a competitive conflict style at work who would always be the dominant ones. I remember during the summer, these competitive employees would always be the ones to try to get the job of operating the waterslides during their shift because it was the easiest position. Often these people who would speak up and push the envelope to work the waterslides ended up getting the positions over others, making it all a competition and sometimes a conflict.

Someone with an avoidant conflict style is not interested in dealing with conflict head on, but instead delaying the issue. I admit that during my time working, I shifted from an accommodator to more of an avoider when faced with conflict. Because the size of the staff was so large, I often did not want to get involved with all of the small conflicts that would take place between other employees if it wasn’t necessary. Although I was not faced with many large-scale conflicts while working, someone with an avoidant conflict style will have a large conflict blow up if they do not deal with the issue at hand.

The collaborative and compromising conflict styles are commonly seen as the most useful ways to deal with a conflict in the workplace. The managers would always choose to select these types of employees to important job positions or as managers. Both these conflict styles are important to the workplace because they use an even amount of cooperativeness as well as assertiveness when faced with a conflicts among employees.