Conflict Profile
Within human services, leaders are often required to solve problems and resolve conflicts. These responsibilities might take place within the organization, on behalf of the stakeholders, when dealing with potential legislation or legislative mandates, or when advocating for clients. For human service leaders working within public organizations, there are guidelines for handling conflict and advocating for legislation that may impact their work.
As a potential or current leader in human services, you will most likely face situations where conflicts exist. Knowing your personal style of handling conflict helps to prepare you for these situations. No conflict-handling style is right or wrong for leaders. Rather knowing your personal style for handling conflict provides you with a repertoire of possible responses to various situations you might face.
For this Discussion, you complete a “Dealing with Conflict Instrument” located in the Week 4: Learning Resources. Consider how your conflict-handling style might help or hinder you as a leader in an organization or when advocating for legislative change. Here is the link for the assessment: http://dci.hrdpressonline.com/free-assessment.asp?associateid=760
Part 1
Post by Day 4 a brief description, based on your assessment, of your conflict-handling style. Include how your conflict-handling style might help or hinder you in a current or potential leadership role. In addition, explain how you might use your conflict-handling style in advocating for the legislative change you proposed in Week 3 Application. Be specific and provide examples.
Part 2
Read a selection of your colleagues’ postings.
respond in one of your colleague’s postings in one or more of the following ways:
• Ask a probing question.
• Share an insight from having read your colleague’s posting.
• Offer and support an opinion.
• Validate an idea with your own experience.
• Make a suggestion.
Expand on your colleague’s posting.
See posting below
Handling conflict is an attribute to acquire especially as a leader. In today’s society we encounter people from all walks of life. There are individuals who have various likes and dislikes. As much as we would like to believe we can, we won’t always get along with everyone. There will be disagreements and differences of opinions. As professionals in the Human Services field we provide services to people. With that comes the need to advocate on their behalf at many levels.
Recently I took an assessment that measured my conflict resolution style. I used the “Dealing with Conflict Instrument,” created by Alexander Hiam. The assessment tool determined that my dominant style is: Collaborate, scoring a 6. Collaboration is the most successful style of conflict resolution. This style allows for a win/win situation. This is also the most time consuming of all resolutions. Because this is true more often than not most people resolve to solve conflict with a less effective method. The focus is maintained on the problem rather than the people in the collaborative conflict resolution method.
The second highest score in the assessment is: Compete, scoring a 3. Competing has its place in resolving conflict. Using competition depends upon the situation. If two people were apply for a job as a chef, both would cook for judges to compete for the position. The two cooks would not want to compromise in this situation. There must be a winner and a loser. Making “split second decisions” (Hiam, 1999), is another appropriate time to use competing conflict resolution. When time is of the essence there will likely be winners and losers.
The area I would like to see legislative change is in the area of mental health. Advocacy is needed to ensure individuals in need of mental health treatment can access and utilize services. Right now in Arizona, budget cuts have severely limited services provided to the mentally ill. “Between 2009 and 2010 Arizona cut mental health services more than $57, reducing or cutting services for about 14,000 people” (Wyatt, 2011). My style of conflict resolution can impact the way I speak out on behalf of the mentally ill in my community. I may not want to compromise when it comes to having to pick and choose what services can be provided to this population. Instead I may want to stand my ground on the issues and fight for legislation to be pushed through that allocates money and resources for these individuals. On the other hand, pushing too hard may cause me to lose the battle completely. In some ways it is better when dealing with politicians to look for a win/win solution. No doubt a lot of discussion would occur around this subject and, give and take would be part of the solution.
No matter how hard we try conflict is bound to occur. No one style is absolute but some work better than others depending upon the situation. A Human Services professional will do well to understand their own dominant style.
References
Hiam, A. (199). Dealing with Conflict Instrument. HRD. Press, Inc. Amherst, Massachusetts.
Retrieved December 27, 2012 from http://dci.hrdpressonline.com
Wyatt, K. (2011, March 9). State Budget Cuts Decimate Mental Health Services. The
Washington Post. Retrieved December 27, 2012 from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/09/AR2011030900507.html
