Causes of conflict!

Causes of conflict - 115/365: Anger Management Style #1 (Photo credit: by Janine)

What are the causes of conflict? It is too late to think of the cause if you are already in a conflict. The best time to think of the causes of conflict is during peacetime so to speak. 

How many times have you made the same mistake repeatedly and triggered the causes of conflict? 

Given below are the common causes of conflict:

• Mind reading – you assume negative things the other person is thinking about you and feel angry.
• You are so self-centered that you fail to consider other person’s needs.
• You are carrying a heavy baggage of hurts, insults, and suspicions.
• Your Leadership and management styles are authoritarian.
• Your Leadership and management styles do not leave any room for listening.
• You are taking relationships for granted.
• You are under tremendous stress, or you are unable to spot the stress in others.
• You have a suboptimal Leadership and management styles.
• You have poor conflict resolution skills.
• Your empathy is so low that you are unable to put yourself in other’s shoes.
• You have differences in values with others, and you are not even aware of it.
• Your goals are misaligned with others, and you are pulling in different directions.
• You have an inbuilt prejudice that you are not even aware of, and it is affecting your relationship with certain kinds of people repeatedly. 
• You have very poor listening skills and most of the time you are not registering in what others say.
• You are very selfish, and you are concerned only of your needs and wants.

These are some of the main causes of conflict. A lot of it has to do with your personality and some of it has to do with your Leadership and management styles.

The bad news is that you will find it difficult to change as these are hardened habits of behavior. However, the good news is that you can change if you are determined and work hard.

The first step you can take is to increase your awareness of these causes of conflict and resolve to remove the causes one by one. 

It will also be a good idea to go for some excellent training programs where they teach you leadership management styles that are based on sound leadership and management values.

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Communication strategy in a conflict-making the first move!

Communication strategy - Two-way communication (Photo credit: @boetter)

Conflicts are a common place in modern day to day living. When was the last time you had a conflict and what was your communication strategy to resolve it? 

There are typical ways people react when they are in a conflict -read through the list while checking how many of these approaches you follow in handling conflict.

Strategy variations in handling conflicts are:

• Withdrawal
• Feeling sorry for yourself
• Blaming yourself
• Labeling yourself as a failure
• Labeling others
• Silent treatment
• Mind reading
• Shunning away from resolving the conflict
• Passing sarcastic remarks
• Attacking the other person at every opportunity
• Planning and setting a trap
• Complaining
• Gossiping about the person you are in conflict with
• Self-pity
• Depression
• Emotional outbursts
• Indulging in fear
• Open transparent two-way communication

The list can go on and on. Create your own list of behaviors that you use to cope with conflict. 

If you look at the list above, you will see that most of the strategies for dealing with a conflict move away from communication even though communication is the key to resolving conflict.

Conflicts can be resolved through open communication. You have to think through a communication strategy before you attempt to resolve the conflict. The biggest dilemma you will experience is the million dollars question “Who will make the first move?” The greatest temptation is to postpone resolving the conflict and hope things will get better. Conflicts rarely solve itself and there are great benefits if you make the first move to resolve the conflict.

The benefits are the following:

• You will feel better because you are taking some action
• Further conflicts will not pile up over the current one
• You will have a great chance to diffuse the tension
• You will be able to maintain the relationship and perhaps even grow it
• You will get peace of mind
• You will be in the driver’s seat

Your communication strategy should always be to be the first one to take the step to resolve the conflict. 

Even if you follow this one strategy you will end up resolving much more conflicts than others, and you will be at peace. 

Look back at all the conflicts you have had and how many of them, you took charge to resolve the conflict?

Commit today that in all conflicts in the future you will make the first move to resolve them.

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Resolving conflict through communication.

Communication (Photo credit: DailyPic)

Conflict situations constantly occur day in and day out. Think about the last conflict you were involved in. How did it go? Do you handle the conflict situations well? 

Communication is the key to resolve conflicts; however, conflict situations will lead to communication breakdown. Have you ever withdrawn from a person after a conflict? Withdrawing from a person after having a conflict and stopping all communications with that person is a common way people handle conflict. This is called the “silent treatment” strategy, and it is one of the most destructive strategies you can adopt in a conflict situations.

There are consequences if you use the silent strategy to cope with a conflict situations. 

The consequences are given below:

• Communication with that person you are in conflict with will come to a complete halt.
• Relationship will begin to deteriorate.
• Stress levels will run high when you meet that person, and this is more so if that person is a loved one.
• There is danger of further conflicts occurring and piling up over the first conflict.
• Conflict may reach to the point of no return and one more conflict may be the “last straw on the camel’s back.”

What must you do for resolving conflict? The first step is to resist the urge to adopt the “silent treatment” strategy. 
 
Here are some very powerful steps for resolving conflict:
 

• Resolve to start the process of communication at an appropriate time.
• Tell the person that he or she is very important for you and you are sorry that there is a conflict situation between him /her and you.
• Acknowledge the feelings on both sides.
• Tell the person that resolving conflict is very important for you.
• Establish some ground rules for resolving conflict: there will be mutual respect, empathic listening and a win-win approach from both the sides.
• Put all the elements and facts about the conflict on the table
• Look at the conflict from the same side of the table and end up resolving conflict to the full satisfaction of that person and you.

As you can see communication is the key to resolve conflict. Get into the habit of establishing communication with the person you have had a conflict with at the earliest.
 
What do you think of this post? Please share it with others.

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