LSI Conflict Inventory

Navigating the Different Responses to Conflict Conflict is an inevitable part of human life that produces a variety of responses that reflect the unique characteristics of an individual’s mindset and approach to the conflict. People exhibit a plethera of reactions when going through conflict, from composed conversations to ferocious protests. The manner in which someone chooses to deal with problems reflects their personality and attitude toward resolving conflicts. When you confront a problem calmly and with a positive way of thinking, you will be able to foster empathy and a sense of connection with others, while being able to express your viewpoint clearly. This will enable you to build strong and long-lasting relationships and settle conflicts without hurting you or anyone else.

The Life Styles Conflict Inventory assignment gave me a chance to see on paper how my thinking styles influence my ability to deal with conflict situation. The life styles survey is geared towards helping individuals gain an insight into their own self development and personality along with the type of behaviors we exercise to others as well. By doing the survey, I have a better understanding on how I can constructively deal with conflict as an individual. The survey also helps us take a look on the positive and negative qualities of our own personalities and different ways we to build and improve upon them.

There are different conflict management styles, the dictatorial style, which insists that things are addressed their way and the low self -esteem style, which just allows others to have it their way. It is up to the individual to decide which way works for them. Additionally, the abdicator handles conflict by bowing out or walking away. This method is unhealthy because it robs the offended growth opportunity, which results from working through issues (Pegues, 2009, p.49). Another style is the collaborator, which often involves cooperation and pulling together to reach a common purpose and are emotionally balanced.

I can help resolve fights as I have been elected as peer mediator leader in my current and past school 4 years in a row. Being the mediator during a conflict may seem easy but can be quite hard as you must be unbiased and calm at all times. Leading on from this, I believe that due to the fact I was peer mediator leader, I have gathered the skills required to help resolve conflict smoothly and without trouble. Imagine a staff member called to help resolve a fight between two players who then said, "Err, so... I don't really know what to do... Maybe just give him some money?" That would have to be one of the worst ways to help resolve a fight. The first thing I would have said was, "What is the problem you two are currently facing?" That allows you to understand the situation and branch out into more detail about why the fight started and what they should do to resolve

How many interpersonal conflicts have you been in today, this week, or even this month? Do you even know which conflict styles you normally use when faced with a disagreement? Furthermore, this analysis shall reflect on my particular conflict styles, with an in-depth look at possible benefits of knowing the conflict styles I tend to incorporate, and how behaviors change based on a relationship and the environment.

For example, my sister and I used to fight all the time. Eventually, I had to learn to respond in the right way. I have to make sure my head is on straight and listen to her point of view. After I do this, I can then reason with her because she has gotten all of her feelings out. When I reason with her it is likely that I might be able to resolve the conflict or even when the argument. Listening to other people’s view during conflict is very important. Last year after Turner and I broke up he decided that he was going to be rude to me and create some more conflict between us. We already did not agree on some things and had opposing viewpoints. He just wanted to make the situation worse. During that I time, I chose to not engage is his game. I just responded to him nicely and smiled when I saw him. I didn’t every retaliate and try to get back at him. It is not surprising that method worked. At the end of the day I was always the one who was happy and he was the one in a bad mood. Eventually the game became boring to him and he quit. Clearly, having a positive attitude can a person become successful during conflict.

Conflict is a necessary part of human nature; it is not something that we can avoid. Many different factors are cataclysmic towards conflict. Goals, personalities, lack of resources, communication skills, and character values are always conflict can come about. Personality-wise, I find myself to be mostly “The Relational Person” and “ The Thinker/Analyzer”. These two personality types have a gargantuous effect on my conflict management skills in many ways. As conflict is a reality of any relationships, it is important to know the strengths and growth areas of yourself.

Each of us typically uses only one or two conflict resolution strategies in most situations (Williams, n.d.). As I assess my own comfort level with conflict, I would rate my comfort level with conflict as poor. I typically use avoidance strategies to deal with conflict if the issue is not critical. I believe the reason for this is I value what people think of me, especially if I have an ongoing relationship with them. I do not like it when people are upset or angry with me. I am a generally thought of as a “people pleaser”. Time pressure, issue importance, relationship importance, and the amount of power one person has compared to the other affects which conflict management strategy a person uses (Williams,

In the face of conflict one must look for objective criteria with which to resolve conflict is essential. Always keep in mind the aspiration for long term relationship building. We never know when we would meet our counterpart, another representative of his or her organization or a common acquaintance

Most of the time it comes down to compromise. It is not a total win win situation. It is more likely that a fifty fifty compromise where some ground may be lost by both sides. As an engineer there was seldom any question to the methods or techniques that I used to obtain results. As a manager everything is under scrutiny. Using the appropriate conflict style in different situations is a learned behavior. The first step is knowing that there are different conflict styles to choose. My goal is to collaborate in most conflicts so that each party comes out feeling that they have meet their objective. In this way we are both are willing and eager to come back to the negotiating table. When working with fellow colleagues or subordinates I work hard to collaborate with them. When they feel that their ideas are important they will work hard to make sure the success of their idea. When you use the collaboration style of conflict resolution the conflict quickly turns into a team based problem solving venture. Both parties realize they have something to gain by solving the conflict. This reduces stress and can help build

I would say that my conflict style is a combination of compromising and collaborating. I’m a huge believer in the ability of compromise to defuse most hostile conflicts. It’s true that there are two sides to every argument; however, people often forget that there can be two sides to every solution as well. In many of the conflicts that I’ve witnessed or been involved in, the level of hostility escalates because neither participant is willing to honestly and equally here the others point of view. Since I’m often the mediator in these situations, it provides me with the opportunity to examine the problem objectively without investing in emotionally. By keeping an emotional distance, I can usually come up with a solution that is beneficial and

Conflict is a subject I really don’t care for, as I believe many don’t. It’s not pleasant most times and can be uncomfortable as mentioned in Interpersonal Skills in Organization. Although conflict is not something any of us like to deal with, unfortunately it is a natural part of life, and it is important to know how to address it. We find that controlling our tempers, communicating effectively, and keeping an open mind can make a huge difference. These points were helpful for me since I often times don’t know how to handle conflict when it comes to certain situations, and many times have ignored it with the hope that it would eventually go

 "Effective conflict resolution requires dealing constructively with disagreements rather than pushing them under the rug, letting them break into open warfare, or attempting to eliminate them completely.  Successful resolution of a conflict may include the following: accurate diagnosis of the nature and source of the conflict, a clear understanding of how each party is contributing to the conflict, skills and processes for defining alternatives, constructively negotiating outcomes, and creatively developing win-win resolutions" (Hagberg Consulting Group, 1).

Conflict is rarely unavoidable when in close relationships. As the text states, people most commonly handle conflict in one of five ways: accommodation, avoidance, collaboration, competition, or reactivity. There are positive and negative possibilities of outcomes from using any of the five approaches to handling conflict (262). Accommodation involves an individual’s abandonment of his/her own goals to the desires of the other individual, whereas avoidance, a lose-lose conflict style, involves various techniques that involve lower risk to the individual than direct confrontation. Collaboration and competition differ mainly over the value of personal needs or goals. Collaboration involves using compromise, where every person involved are willing to alter his/her views to reach a solution to the conflict. Competition is a more direct approach involving a clash of goals which exists because one will pursue their own goals without regard for others. Reactivity is characterized as nonstrategic and is communicated in a negative way. I argue the combination of collaborating and avoiding is an effective combination because in order for an individual to effectively and efficiently solve problems individuals must know when to redirect conversation to a more relevant topic and have the ability to take the emotion out of problem solving.

In order to understand conflict, one must understand communication and the role it plays with conflict. Conflict is defined in the dictionary as, a serious disagreement or argument, typically a protracted one. When communication is not present or used effectively in a situation, the chances of conflict will arise because of either the lack of communication or the misunderstanding of it. If used effectively then each party has a greater chance of understanding each other in a efficient way, thus the chances for being mislead or not understood decreases greatly. Even if issues arise, they can be quickly contained in a swift manner as effective communication is being use for everyone to understand the situation at hand. Simply put, communication and conflict are often side by side when it comes with either solving a issue or creating on.