Unit 3 Understanding Conflict Styles

Overview

In this unit we continue the journey of self-awareness to discover our preferred conflict style and how it impacts our relationships. We will also be exploring how conflict between two parties can escalate into deeply entrenched sides with seemingly insurmountable differences. We will look at the life of Nelson Mandela, a man engaged in the fight to end The Apartheid in South Africa, as portrayed in the film Mandela: A Long Walk to Freedom. We will also begin to look at how to engage in crucial accountability conversations and why they should not be avoided.

Topics

This unit is divided into the following topics:

  1. Conflict Styles
  2. High Conflict
  3. Introduction to Crucial Accountability

Learning Outcomes

When you have completed this unit, you should be able to:

  • Describe five different conflict styles, including their strengths and weaknesses.
  • Identify your preferred conflict style
  • Examine a model of the Conflict process
  • Review conflict through the eyes of Nelson Mandela
  • Observe that going through conflicts and challenges can build character
  • Identify the difference between a discussion, a disagreement, conflict, and high conflict.

Activity Checklist

Here is a checklist of learning activities you will benefit from in completing this unit. You may find it useful for planning your work.

Learning Activities

  • Read the sample “TKI®️ report” and create a table or visual representation of the definitions of the five different conflict modes and the signs of over and under use of each mode.
  • Complete a conflict styles quiz, review your results and write a poem or descriptive paragraph that uses a metaphor/analogy that reflects your dominant style.
  • Watch the video clips on the history of apartheid, and Mandela’s famous speeches. Your Mandela’s Film Study Paper on this film is due at the end of this unit.

Note that the learning activities in this course are ungraded, unless specified. They are designed to help you succeed in your assessments in this course, so you are strongly encouraged to complete them

Assessment

  • Film Study Paper (20%)
  • Conflict Style - Poem (2.5%)

Resources

Here are the resources you will need to complete this unit.

  • Online resources will be provided in the unit.

3.1 Conflict Styles

Watch: Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Model Explained

We begin Unit 3 by continuing to develop our self-awareness by taking an assessment to determine your predominant conflict style. It could also be considered your default style. This means it is your first instinct of how to respond when you encounter conflict. Knowing your predominant style will help you consciously choose how to engage in conflict, depending on the situation.

The most well-known authors on conflict styles are, K. W. Thomas and R.H. Kilmann. They designed a psychometric assessment known as the TKI®️ that highlights five different modes represented in this graph:

Figure 3.1

Activity: Conflict Models Visual Representation (Graded)

Read the sample “TKI®️ report” After reviewing the content on conflict styles, create a visual representation of conflict modes that includes when they are the appropriate choice and when they are not the appropriate choice. Also include indications that one may observe when they are overused and underused. (Think strengths and weaknesses).

This activity will be graded. Please refer to the Assessment section for more information about how to submit it.

Activity: Conflict Styles - Poem (Graded)

Complete this Conflict Styles Quiz You can choose to have your results and guide emailed to you or you can see your results right there.
After reviewing your results, write a poem or descriptive paragraph that uses a metaphor/analogy that reflects your preferred style.

Take a look at this example:

Wise and serene.
Conflict? Oh yeah?
If problems don’t exist, why bother to fix?
Hot-headed folks make a ruckus and mix.
Yet I stay cool, walk on by with a grin.
Too busy saving the world to join in.
No time for petty fights, that’s the trick!

This activity will be graded. Please refer to the Assessment section more information about how to submit it.

3.2 High Conflict: Defining Characteristics and Examples

We have established that conflict is inevitable and later this unit we will examine why it is necessary and good. Yes, conflict can be good. However, it is important to recognize when good conflict becomes bad. Or good conflict becomes high conflict.

Good conflict is characterized by (Ripley, 2022):

  • Humility
  • Curiosity and good questions
  • Many different emotions
  • Everyone wants a solution
  • Complexity
  • Novelty
  • Passion
  • Spikes in stress hormones followed by recovery (think fight/flight response and then recovery)

“Good conflict is a force that pushes us to be better people…We need healthy conflict in order to defend ourselves, to understand each other and to improve” (Ripley, 2022, p. 3-4).

Amanda Ripley is a journalist who traveled around the world and observed High Conflict is different. She noted there are clear distinguishing factors between good, healthy conflict and destructive, high conflict. The conflict becomes self-perpetuating and the stress hormones of those involved stay elevated with little to no recovery. Everyone ends up worse off.

“High conflict is what happens when conflict clarifies into a good-versus-evil kind of feud, the kind with us and them… the normal rules of engagement no longer apply…the brain behaves differently. We feel increasingly certain of our own superiority and, at the same time more and mystified by the other side” (Ripley, 2022, p. 4).

The top three areas where high conflict emerges is in divorce, gangs, and politics.

Watch: Introduction to High Conflict with Amanda Ripley

The questions we ponder are:

  1. How do we recognize high conflict?
  2. How do we prevent it?
Recognizing it - Click here to expand

According to Ripley (2020).

  • High conflict always has sides.They are binary.Binary means there are two sides. In high conflict, the two sides are exclusive from each other.

  • The sides are defined as us vs. them. Or right vs. wrong.Or good vs.evil

Preventing it - Click here to expand
  • Investigate the understory - what is the conflict really about.
    • A conflict can often appear to be about something, but it really is about something else

  • Reduce the binary
    • If groups are necessary, make sure there are more than two.

  • Marginalize the fire starters-Conflict entrepreneurs

    • There are always people who love a good conflict. They thrive and will fuel any small disputes. Identify them and find ways to minimize their input.

  • Buy time and make space

    • Find ways to slow down the process and make space for new ideas to emerge.
    • This includes a concept from Adaptive Leadership called going to the balcony (Northouse, 2022, p. 290).The balcony represents perspective, the bigger picture. High conflict will be all consuming unless one can see it as a smaller part of the larger context.

  • Food, humor and active listening

    • Sharing food is a communal practice. According to research done by Dunbar (2017), food and the act of eating together, communal eating, is a mechanism for social bonding. Eating together is a way to humanize each other.

  • Complicate the narrative.

    • The binary nature of high conflict (where there are only two sides, only two storylines), plays a significant role in intensifying emotions.All the energy is directed to one place: the other side. Creating alternative options, alternative narratives, helps to diffuse that emotional energy and stimulate creativity.
    • Be curious about the people with whom you disagree. This is called perspective taking (Klein, 2019) and it relates to empathy, a topic we covered in Unit 1 and will revisit in Unit 4.
    • Ask yourself what is being oversimplified in this situation.

A well-known example of a high conflict situation was in South Africa with apartheid. Apartheid means “apartness” in Africkaans, the language of the South African people. It was a policy introduced by the government in 1948 that “ governed relations between South Africa’s white minority and non-white majority for much of the latter half of the 20th century, sanctioning racial segregation and political and economic discrimination against nonwhites” (Britannica, 2023). For an overview of the historical timeline of South Africa, you visit South Africa profile - Timeline - BBC News. In the 1060’s, Nelson Mandela rose to prominence as an advocate in the African National Congress (ANC), which was a political liberation movement opposing apartheid.

Activity: Mandela’s Life

Throughout his life, Mandela’s approach to this deeply entrenched, national conflict, shifted and he became a key figure in changing that nation. In examining his life, you will discover a man whose character was shaped by his choices how it impacted his approach conflict in ways that were healthy and productive.

The following videos will help to provide historical context for the conflict you will see in the Mandela: A long walk to freedom film. Your Film Study Paper on this film is due at end of this unit.

Watch: Apartheid Explained

Watch: Nelson Mandela’s Life Story

Watch: 7 BRILLIANT Nelson Mandela Speeches That Will NEVER BE FORGOTTEN

Assessment

Please locale under the “Assessment” tab all information including instructions, rubrics, forums, and dropboxes for the following assignments.

Film Study Paper

Watch the 2013 film Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom starring Idris Elba. You can find it on a variety of sites online for free.

After you have watched the film, you will write a 3–4-page reflection that includes a citation from four of the assigned readings or resources. It must be APA format and include a title page, citations, and reference page for all sources you cited.

All information, including specific instructions, rubrics, forums, and dropboxes, are located under the “Assessment” tab.

Conflict Style - Poem

Based on your conflict style, write a poem or descriptive paragraph using analogies or metaphors to describe your default conflict style. You can include your over/under use of that style in your writing.

All information, including specific instructions, rubrics, forums, and dropboxes, are located under the “Assessment” tab.

Unit 3 Summary

In this unit, we added to our self-awareness by learning our preferred conflict mode and how its over and underuse can be counterproductive in both personal and work relationships. We were also introduced to the topic of high conflict and how to differentiate it from healthy conflict. Finally, we examined the life of Nelson Mandela and the high conflict society that was a result of apartheid laws in South Africa. In the end, it was his approach to this conflict that brought change and initiated the truth and reconciliation process in that nation.

Checking your Learning

Before you move on to the next unit, you may want to check to make sure that you are able to:

  • Describe five different conflict styles, including their strengths and weaknesses.
  • Identify your preferred conflict style
  • Examine a model of the Conflict process
  • Review conflict through the eyes of Nelson Mandela
  • Observe that going through conflicts and challenges can build character
  • Identify the difference between a discussion, a disagreement, conflict, and high conflict.

References

Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopedia (2023, April 27).Apartheid. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/

Dunbar, R. I. M. (2017). Breaking Bread: The functions of social eating.Adaptive Human Behaviour and Physiology3 (198–211).https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40750-017-0061
DOI 10.1007/s40750-017-0061-4

Klein, N. (2019). Better to overestimate than to underestimate others’ feelings: Asymmetric cost of errors in affective perspective-taking.Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes151 (1-15).Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0749597817302145#:~:text=Experiment

Northouse, P. G. (2022).Leadership: Theory & Practice(9th ed.). Sage.