Conflict Management Styles

Conflict is part of our everyday lives. We must all deal with some sort of conflict. “Conflict occurs whenever disagreements exist in a social situation over issues of substance or whenever antagonisms create frictions between individuals or groups.” (Schermerhorn, Hunt, Osborn, 127) Our textbook Organizational Behavior describes two types of conflict, the first type of conflict is substantive conflict which involves fundamental disagreement over ends or goals to be pursued and the means for their accomplishment, and the second type of conflict is emotional conflict which involves interpersonal difficulties that arise over feelings of anger, mistrust, dislike, fear, and resentment. (Schermerhorn, Hunt, Osborn, 127) There are also different levels of conflict and they are intrapersonal conflict, interpersonal conflict, intergroup conflict, and interorganizational conflict.
How we deal with conflict depends on our conflict management style. Each of us has our own conflict managemen...