Conflict & Leadership Artifact

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Apr 3, 2024

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1 Navigating Conflict and Power Dynamics in the Workplace: Insights for Effective Leadership Darianna Gracia Issues in Organizational Leadership ORGL-3311-VF1 Diana Lucio

2 Navigating Conflict and Power Dynamics in the Workplace: Insights for Effective Leadership Conflict is an inevitable element of any human interaction with work environment being one of the potential areas of conflict (Pradies et al., 2021, p.154). It is important to understand kinds, causes, consequences, and conflict handling strategies of conflict for effective resolution of conflicts in organizational settings. Conflict is a term used to describe among individuals or group of people with objectives that contrast, see their values interweave, beliefs clash, or interests that hinder them. Workplaces is actually a source of conflict with its nature presenting task conflict and relationship conflict as its two main types. Task conflict, another name for cognitive conflict, stems from the varying outlooks, thinking, and idea generation that are associated with the work undertaken. The second reason is the relationship conflict which has the basis in internal factors like incompatible personality and thus leads to unfavorable emotions like tension, aggression, and hostility. Hence, discerning between such distinctions remains extremely important because task conflict is work-related and relationship conflict, on the other hand, is more personal in nature. The sources of conflict inside the work space are diverse; including different styles of communication, opposing aims, limited resources, role conflicts, personality differences and others. These factors may lead into the upgrading of conflicts if they are not quickly resolved (Davildaviciene & Al Majzoub, 2022, p.64). In the consequences of conflicts (ranging from positive such as increased creativity and adaptability to negative, which are decreased productivity, morale, and job satisfaction). This calls for organizations to design sound conflict resolution strategies. People dealing with conflicts frequently use different styles of conflict management. The five main style of conflict-handling are competing, collaborating, compromising, avoiding and accommodating. Competition often means prioritizing one's own goals at the expense of others, while cooperation aims at finding reciprocally beneficial outcomes (Aggarwal et al., 2020, p.40). The negotiating styles of compromising, sidestepping and accommodating are aimed at reaching common ground, adjusting and prioritizing the needs of others instead of oneself respectively. Each approach has its pros and cons, and the appropriate one is selected in view of the current circumstance and future results.

3 Workplace conflicts influence performance in a complicated way. In spite of the fact that conflicts might bring creative and innovative ideas through the testing of the existing ideas and encouraging critical thinking, unresolved or poorly managed conflicts usually have negative impacts on the performance. It may result into decreased productivity, employee morale and job satisfaction and may cause absenteeism and turnover (Rapatalo, 2020, p.117). Thus conflicts should be addressed constructively so as to promote a positive work environment and organizational efficiency. Power is also an important concept that affects relationships and decisions in organizational dynamics. Power is the potential to affect or modify other people's behaviors or outcomes. It is similar to dependency because power frequently dictates the availability of resources and information that an individual or group needs. Dependency arises when a party needs the other party for something important such as resources, support, or approval from the other party. Scarcity, importance, and substitutability are the salient determinants of the dependence networks. Scarcity indicates limited availability of resources and information; hence the value of the resource or information increases and the dependency on it arises. Importance emphasizes the significance of the resource or information to the dependent party advanced by this, the dependency. Substitutability indicates how simple it is for the counterpart to find replacement sources to meet its needs, affecting the degree of dependency on a particular source. A good example of this is that an employee might rely on their supervisor to help their career growth in a place of work. These limited factors inside the organization like career development for the employee and there is no easy alternative for employee can increase his dependency on a manager. This dependence can also impact the way the dynamics of this relationship and interactions within the organization are played out. Power can be derived from various sources, known as the six bases of power: The authority is not always legitimate, reward, coercive, expert, referent, and informational power (Lee et al., 2021, p.493). True power comes from the formal authority of an institution, while positive power is the ability to grant incentives or benefits. Compulsory power bases itself on the threat of sanctions or punishments, in contrast to expert power that relies on knowledge and expertise. The authority type that results from admiration or respect is called referent power, and

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4 when people’s access to valuable information is assured, this yields the informational power type. Resource scarcity in organizations often leads to political behavior where an individual or a group utilize their controlover the limited resources or information to accumulate power and influence the decision-making procedures (Bhatt et al., 2024, p.59). Through controlling the access to the vital resources and information, individuals may manipulate situations to their benefit creating the differences in power between them and fellow staff members that affect organizational dynamics and relations. The disparagement of the research that shows how task conflict and relationship conflict have dynamic nature in conflict management in organizations speaks for the elusive aspect of management that leaders have to be tactful in handling the conflicts. Their research is dedicated to a possible explanation of why task conflict can change into relationship conflict so quickly, which is connected with emotional expression, reciprocal retribution, and interpersonal misattribution in the conflict process. This accentuates how having a note of what causes conflict flare up and resulting negative impact on worker’s behaviours and wellness is important. Also, the effects on leader(s) in organizations are described and the importance of leaders knowing the connection between task conflict, leader-member (LM) exchange differentiation, relationship conflict and burnout is demonstrated. (Krajcsák, 2022, p.746). The interaction of those issues mainly is a cause of the relationship conflict, which results in the burnout of the employees. Leaders simply can’t be left aside in the process of these relationships building because only they can help to deliver productive communication, cooperation and conflict prevention with preparedness for early conflict settling. Additionally, the study brings out the inescapable importance of bearing in mind cultural and demographic factors while dealing with conflict management, which is manifested in the study sample biases. It is vital for leaders to be aware of the diversity within each team and the organization, as traits and attributes which are different in nature such as gender, age and cultural background, do influence the dynamics and outcome of a conflict. Through foster and appreciation cultural differences leaders can build common work environment and remove barriers that come between employees’ well-being and work which is the continual source of conflicts (Stahl & Maznevski, 2021, p.4).

5 Lastly, we come to the conclusion that conflict and power are the inseparable part of the organizational dynamics that affect relationships, decision-making processes and basically everything. Knowing various types of conflict, conflict-handling styles, bases of power and the way conflict is transformed in the workplace will benefit anyone to demonstrate effectiveness in the conflict management and leadership. Through the fostering of a culture that promotes open communication, collaboration and respect leaders can tackle conflicts constructively and develop a healthy team dynamic which in turn improves organizational success.

6 References Aggarwal, R., Verma, T., & Agarwal, K. (2020). Conflict management-a challenge to resolve through various communication styles. International Journal of Environment, Workplace and Employment , 6 (1-2), 40-55. Bhatt, B., Qureshi, I., Shukla, D. M., & Hota, P. K. (2024). Prefiguring alternative organizing: Confronting marginalization through projective cultural adjustment and tempered autonomy. Organization Studies , 45 (1), 59-84. Davidaviciene, V., & Al Majzoub, K. (2022). The effect of cultural intelligence, conflict, and transformational leadership on decision-making processes in virtual teams. Social Sciences , 11 (2), 64. Krajcsák, Z. (2022). Modelling organizational conflict processes: the organizational value of employee commitment and the moderating role of transformational leadership. Journal of Modelling in Management , 17 (2), 746-763. Lee, J. M., Bock, G. W., & Suh, A. (2021). The influence of social power on knowledge utilization. Journal of Computer Information Systems , 61 (6), 493-506. Pradies, C., Aust, I., Bednarek, R., Brandl, J., Carmine, S., Cheal, J., ... & Keller, J. (2021). The lived experience of paradox: How individuals navigate tensions during the pandemic crisis. Journal of Management Inquiry , 30 (2), 154-167. Rapatalo, M. L. T. (2020). Personality Types and Conflict Management Styles. Journal of World Englishes and Educational Practices , 2 (2), 117-128. Stahl, G. K., & Maznevski, M. L. (2021). Unraveling the effects of cultural diversity in teams: A retrospective of research on multicultural work groups and an agenda for future research. Journal of International Business Studies , 52 , 4-22.

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