Conflict Styles Assignment

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Conflict Styles Assignment.
The interpersonal skills examples that I will use in this paper are from the workplace. Interpersonal conflicts are bound to occur in the workplace because of natural differences in people’s personalities, work ethics or beliefs. The first is an example of a business competitor that I have. Our company had released a new product recently. A few days later, the competitor was using a picture of our newly released model to advertise an upcoming product they were planning to release. I attempted to communicate my frustration over the fact that the competitor was not allowed to use my company’s newly released patented product photo to represent a future version they had; they did not listen. I finally got frustrated and gave them an ultimatum that they should take it down or our relationship will be done. I think the competitor felt frustrated about this since we both helped each other exchange products we needed to sell.
Another instance of interpersonal conflict was between my supervisor and I. I felt like my supervisor was not giving me enough sales leads. Consequently, I publicly criticized him and said that he was biased. It was until later on that I discovered that he did not have enough sales leads and he had not given enough to any salesperson. By this time, he had heard about my complaints and was feeling disappointed in me. I was also feeling disappointed in myself. The last interpersonal conflict I had occurred in a staff’s meeting.

Alice, a colleague, made a comment that she thinks that some of the employees are not performing as they should. I felt offended because I expected it was about me and avoided talking to her unless necessary. It was until later on that we discovered that we were both wrong; all the employees were performing to their standards, and I was not underperforming. This made us both feel awful because of the unnecessary things we had done.
Analyzing the way I behaved in the latter stated scenarios, I would have acted better if I applied some of the strategies that had been described in chapter 7 and 8. In the first scenario, I should have used anger management skills by understanding why I was angry in the first place. I should have addressed the conflict in a better manner instead of issuing an ultimatum out of frustration. On the second example, I would have applied emotional intelligence communication strategies appropriately as a way to handle the situation. I would apply this by not letting physiological influences affect me and instead having enough emotional intelligence to recognize that I did not need to act the way I did. Instead, I should have confronted the sales manager and communicated to her what I felt. Finally, in the last scenario given above, I should have applied Gibb’s model and realized that I had become defensive and had transformed the relationship to a defensive one through this act. Instead, I should have described my concern in a better manner; I should apply a supportive communication behavior. I would have been happier with the way I handled the situation and our situation would be stronger than how I would have been. I have recognized that I have had a problem of not being able to manage my anger. I would change this behavior and apply anger management skills when resolving a conflict.