Nowadays establishing teams is a common practice in organizations. There could be self directed or teams with a leader with the hope that there would be better creativity, better results and more productivity when working in a team. This is a very proven approach but when you bring in people from different back grounds who have different experience and they are working in a single team, it is expected that there would be a conflict.
Many of the organizations and managers perceive conflict as a thing which should be avoided at all costs or is something negative but in teams there is bound to be disagreements and difference among team members as this is something natural. It is said that without conflicts team tend to become satisfied themselves and do not perform at the highest level. The main challenge that arises is how can a team be prepared for a situation like this and what is the role of the leader in end the conflict and how?
Types of Conflict. Conflicts can be either termed as functional or dysfunctional. With the functional conflict, teams tend to attain a level where it enhances its performance and the outcomes tend to be pleasing. But if that conflicts rises to a level where it disturbs the team and becomes a hurdle in establishing the goals which are to be attained, this becomes a dysfunctional conflict. To become an effective team there has to be a balance in everything. To focus on the source of the conflict is another way to classify conflicts. To know the source of the conflict will help the team leader to indicate if this would help or break the team. Some of the common sources of conflict are
- Certain team members have their own values which they want to maintain. They do not want to break away from them and this may lead to a conflict
- Coming from different backgrounds may have an affect on the attitude of the team members.
- Some of the expectations of the team members are higher than other and they expect more than other.
- Team member may not be happy with the roles they have been given.
- The resources they are to work with may be less than what others have been given
- Different team members have different personalities
- Some of the team members may be interdependent on others. (Brockmann, Erich, 1996)
Some researchers suggest they are two types of conflicts among team including Cognitive and Affective. The cognitive conflict is aimed at the procedure, ideas, issues and main beliefs where as the Affective conflict is aimed at the people and they values and emotions.
Conflicts can be destructive and constructive and there are numerous outcomes of the two. Conflicts which are constructive exists when
- Individuals tend to change and grow themselves from the arisen conflicts.
- The conflicts may answer to the solution of the original problem
- The involvement of all the concern parties involved tends to increase
- Cohesiveness tends to build up among the team members.
Conflict that is Destrutive exists when
- The end result has not been reached and the issue at hand still persists.
- All the energy is driven away from the activities which are value added
- The morale of the team is completely destroyed
- Division tends to occur in destructive conflict. (Varney, G. H, 1999).