Premium Essay

Managing Work Place Conflict

In: Business and Management

Submitted By sgjb06
Words 1927
Pages 8
Problem
Recently, tensions have risen between employees in the patient accounts department due to personal conflicts. Confrontations between employees have disrupted the work environment, teamwork is diminishing, employee morale is decreasing, and managers are lacking the tools needed to address and solve these issues. Lack of managerial assistance in solving conflicts among employees also seems to be a problem. Shaun Walder, Director of Patient Accounts, does not like to get involved and rather have the employees work it out amongst themselves.
These problems become related because if managers do not get involved, employees will continue to disagree with one another, and the issues are never addressed properly. That brings me to the purpose of this paper. How can managers effectively resolve interpersonal emotional conflicts?

Literature Review
Interpersonal conflict can be described as conflict between two or more individuals who are in a disagreement with one another. Emotional conflict can be described as conflict that involves interpersonal disputes that occur due to feelings of anger, mistrust, fear, dislike, and resentment. Emotional interpersonal conflict is most common amongst teams, co-workers and between management and subordinates (Schermerhorn et al., 2005).
Personal conflict can occur between individuals or groups. However, the distinguishing trait of personal conflict is that it is based purely on negative feelings about another individual or group, and less on substantive issues (Berk & Berk, 1995). It is only natural that people disagree about what to do, how to do it and when to do it. Great ideas from employees can generate new possibilities, better solutions, and plans of action (Alessandra & Hunsaker, 1993).
On the other hand, when difference of opinions between employees are supplemented with too much emotion, the conflict can become

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