Influence of Conflict Management Styles on Decision-Making

Conflict is unavoidable in organization and group settings. While there are different sources of conflicts in groups, consistent and unaddressed conflict is disruptive to a group's efficiency and inhibits productivity and collaboration. Well-managed group conflicts can benefit a group, contrary to the traditional belief that all conflicts are an attribute of dysfunctional groups. Different styles have been developed on how to manage conflict to achieve an outcome properly. Further, group decision-making is a common activity within group settings. This paper explores the five styles of conflict management and the different styles of decision-making. Further, it aims to illustrate how conflict management's competition, collaboration, and withdrawal styles impact decision-making effectiveness within a group.

Conflict is commonly defined as perceived incompatibilities often resulting in opposition. Inarguably, conflict is inevitable in a group setting. Over time, group leaders and managers have understood that conflict fosters negativity within a group and should be eliminated at all costs. However, conflict can either be functional or dysfunctional. Functional conflict usually leads to constructive engagements resulting in better group performance. On the other hand, dysfunctional conflict is destructive and disruptive to member relationships and group activities, respectively. Further, the disruptive conflict has a detrimental impact on a group's overall goals and objectives.

There are multiple sources of conflict with a group making it hard to avoid. One of the most fundamental sources of conflict is scarce resources, including time and money. Further, jurisdictional ambiguities often arise from unclear group roles and responsibilities. Groups are often comprised of members with diverse personalities, cultures, and personal traits. These differences are frequent triggers for conflicts within groups. Authority differences, further, can be a source of conflict when parties seek influence over others. A group often has clearly defined goals and objectives, which can be a source of conflict when individuals pursue goals different from those already identified. Similarly, misperceptions and misunderstandings arising from faulty communications often lead to long-standing conflicts with a group.

While group conflicts are perceived as disruptive, they can be useful if managed well using the correct situational style. There are different accepted styles of conflict management and resolution, including the traditional conflict management style, avoiding, competing, accommodating, compromising, and collaborating. These conflict management styles may be appropriate and effective depending on several factors, including the situation, personalities and traits of the involved parties, the desired outcomes, and the available resources, including time. Before selecting a style, the group should explore the benefits and challenges of each of the styles and select the most appropriate style. Constructive conflict often results in growth and innovation. Further, it helps test ideas, brings about the needed change, challenges illegitimate authority, and increases collaboration and group cohesiveness.

Decision-making is described as a complex process with different phases. In a nutshell, the decision-making process involves generating a set of alternatives and choosing among them. Inarguably, group decisions are more complex compared to personal decisions, which are made daily. Group decisions are often characterized by a variety of viewpoints and perspectives, making them more informed. Through group communication, individuals can present their points openly and provide healthy criticism to other members' views. However, group decision-making is open to groupthink, which often escalates bad decisions resulting from in-group pressures. As a mitigation strategy for groupthink, group leaders can adopt an effective group communication model to evaluate ideas openly and critically.

As stated earlier, conflict management is inevitable in group settings. With the existence of conflicts in groups, several conflict management styles are developed to suggest an array of options for handling group conflict. The five common conflict management styles are identified as the conflict-handling grid. Each of the five approaches can be described as either assertive or cooperative, based on an individual's character. Assertiveness is defined as the motivation of a group member to achieve their goals and outcomes.

On the other hand, cooperativeness evaluates the willingness of a member to allow other members to achieve their outcomes. The different styles are dependent on two fundamental factors: the circumstances of the situations and the personalities and characters of the group parties involved. The five primary conflict management styles are withdrawal, accommodation, compromise, force, and collaboration.

The withdrawal style suggests that a group leader or the conflicting parties should avoid the conflict altogether. This conflict management style is low on assertiveness and cooperativeness as there are no losers or winners. Being the simplest form of conflict management, each conflicting party does not help the other achieve their intended outcome, and neither do they push for an outcome they prefer. This approach favors transferring the issue to third parties or postponing it entirely. While avoiding a conflict through postponing may give time for understanding the dispute, it may result in escalated conflicts which would indisputably compromise a group's productivity and efficiency.

The accommodating approach, also referred to as the smooth style, emphasizes the areas of agreement rather than those of dispute. The accommodating style is most applicable when the conflicting parties need to maintain harmony and relationships. Often, this style requires one conflicting party to concede their position to the needs of the other parties, reflecting a cooperative dimension. While accommodating the other party's interest may be the solution to an existing conflict, there is often a risk of constant abuse by the winning party to take advantage of this conflict management style. Further, the probability of transitioning to a win-win resolution in the future may be difficult due to the buildup of unexpressed views and perspectives by the losing party. The accommodating approach often results in short-term positive relationships within the group.

Further, another conflict management style is the compromise approach, also identified as the reconcile style. The comprise style involves moderate competition and moderate cooperation. Through this method, the conflicting parties search for possible solutions that bring satisfaction to all parties to partially or temporarily solve the conflict. Moreover, the conflicting parties will seek a middle ground, which will eventually result in satisfaction for each of the parties involved. This style is most appropriate when a temporary and urgent solution is sought where time is a primary factor. The partial fulfillment of each party's interest may require constant monitoring to ensure that each party stays within the agreements. In addition, high initial agreement demands are bound to derail the resolution process and as a result, escalating the conflicts.

Further, the competing approach is identified as one of the primary styles of conflict management. Also identified as the force or the direct approach, this approach involves firmly pushing one's viewpoint at the expense of other ideas and perspectives. Further, the competing approach is described as having high assertiveness and low cooperativeness, with one party pushing their agenda to seek their outcomes mostly through a position of power. Often, this style results in a win-lose situation, and it's mostly adopted when quick action is needed or when parties are forced to confront unpopular group actions. The competing approach often provides a quick resolution at the risk of initiating aggression and hostility within the group members resulting in a negative impact on group relationships.

The fifth style of conflict management is collaboration or problem solving, which involves high assertiveness and cooperativeness and usually results in a win-win situation. Through this approach, the conflicting parties ideally work to meet the desired outcomes of all the parties involved by incorporating different viewpoints and differing perspectives. Further, the collaborative approach requires a cooperative attitude and open communication to achieve consensus and commitment, thus rejecting the common win-lose resolutions. Open dialogue in conflict resolution allows for free expression, which helps diffuse the hostility existing between the conflicting parties. In addition, a fundamental advantage of collaborating conflict management is that all parties involved in the dispute feel valued, respected, and understood. Mutual understanding fosters individual relationships and trust within a group. This approach is most suitable when the conflicting issues are complex; however, reaching a consensus might be a resource-consuming task as all parties agree on the passed resolutions. The most-traded resource in the collaboration style is time, where much is required to reach the intended win-win resolution, which becomes elusive the more complex the conflict becomes. If the parties involved do not commit to the resolution, the collaborating management style will have failed.

Decision-making is described as a mental process of selecting the most viable course of action from a set of alternatives. The outcome of every decision-making process can either be an action, recommendation, or opinion. Decision-making involves negotiating and influencing group members. The decision-making process is recognized as a fundamental component of problem-solving. The results of the problem-solving process are key ingredients in decision-making, which focuses on a problem or challenge. Decision-making comprises a series of sequential tasks and activities that structure the process and facilitates its conclusion. The primary phases of the decision-making process are establishing, classifying, and prioritizing the objectives, developing the selection criteria, identifying and evaluating the alternatives against the criteria, choosing the alternative that best satisfies the criteria, and implementing the decision.

There are provisional guidelines that can influence the efficiency and productivity of the decision-making process. First, one should focus primarily on the goals and objectives to be served. This guideline ensures that only the issue at hand is addressed and that the decision-making process is not derailed. Further, the decision-making process should be keenly followed to ensure that the best possible outcome is achieved. Further, environmental factors such as political, cultural, sociological, and financial resources should be considered during the decision-making process. Similarly, a comprehensive analysis of the available information is paramount as it ensures that all many views and perspectives are taken into account before a final decision is reached. Other key guidelines include stimulating a team's creativity and accounting for possible risks.

A group is often required to select the best course of action from a set of alternatives. Some techniques aid a group in selecting the best alternative. One of the most techniques is voting. Given the set of alternatives, voting enables group members to select the most preferred course of action. The most common voting techniques include unanimity, majority, and plurality. Unanimity involves selecting a decision supported by all group members. On the other hand, the majority technique involves selecting the decision supported by at least 50% of the group members, while plurality involves selecting the decision supported by the largest block of members, even though the majority technique is not achieved. In addition to voting, the autocratic decision-making technique is commonly applied in a group setting. This decision-making technique is adopted when a single individual, mostly a group leader, takes the responsibility of deciding on behalf of the group.

There is a direct relationship between conflict management styles and the effectiveness of the decision-making process. As discussed herein, there are varying styles available for conflict management and resolution. These styles have diverse strengths and weaknesses that make them suitable in some situations and ineffective in others. The decision-making process's actual outcome is to select the best choice from a set of possible alternatives. Given the set of alternatives, group members may opt to adopt the collaborating, competing, or withdrawing conflict management style. The collaboration style ensures that each member's perspective on the decision is heard and considered before making the final decision. A decision selected through the unanimity voting technique results in a win-win for all the parties involved. Further, the group can select the avoiding technique where the decision-making process is halted, and the selection process postponed, resulting in a lose-lose situation for all parties involved. In some scenarios, the direct style of conflict resolution is adopted in decision-making. Through this approach, one party pushes its agenda at the expense of the other parties involved. In most cases, a decision made through the competing style of conflict management results in a win-lose situation.

Conflicts often emerge in groups due to various reasons, including scarce resources and miscommunication. While conflicts can benefit a group, they should be properly addressed and managed through one of the five proposed conflict management styles. These conflict management styles can influence the effectiveness of a group's decision-making process. A group engaging in collaborative conflict management styles can make more effective decisions than those opting to avoid conflicts or selecting a competitive style. While the withdrawal style can help gather more information regarding a decision, crucial and time-bound decisions may be negatively impacted. Furthermore, competitive style may frustrate group members, leading to a lack of commitment in implementing the decision and even poor participation in future decision-making processes. Which is the best conflict management style? The most appropriate conflict management is a choice made by considering various factors, including the required outcome, the group environment, and the goals and objectives. Each conflict management style is best suited and appropriate for certain situations characterized by urgency, the need to maintain relationships, among others. An effective group is to select an appropriate conflict management style to positively influence the effectiveness of the decisions and the decision-making process.