How to Manage Conflict

Fundamentals of Conflict

Resolving conflict is never easy. But, since that skill can make or break both your personal and professional life, learning how to deal with confrontational situations and people is a necessary skill. Managing conflict requires these five key skills:

1. Understanding the core ingredients for collaborative thinking.
2. Aligning responsibilities to the needs of others.
3. Building the practices necessary for support into daily interactions.
4. Using conflict resolution and negotiation skills to resolve challenges.
5. Developing personal tools and systems for dealing with tension and pressure.

Your ability to build these skills depends upon four factors:

1. Personal responsibility for your own learning and skill development.
2. Flexibility of style.
3. Ability to listen and give feedback.
4. A positive attitude toward change.

While conflict doesn’t necessarily contain hostility, that can become part of the situation. Conflict is simply "the existence of competing or incompatible...