Joining my current position brought me great joy and professional satisfaction to have the opportunity to give back to my community. I was very enthusiastic about using my knowledge and experience to contribute to the thriving of my community. However, due to personality conflict, this joy was overcast by a work conflict with my subordinate, which we will call Joy. Emerald Works Limited. (n.d.) stated, "Personality conflict or disagreements between individuals. These clashes are driven and perpetuated by emotions such as anger, stress, and frustration. A study found that "personality clashes and warring egos account for nearly half of all workplace conflicts."

This personality conflict originated from unclear responsibilities and competition for resources. Joy misunderstood the role and responsibilities assigned to me, and therefore, she became frustrated and angry as I grew into the role.

Initially, Joy was pleasant and sociable toward me. Nevertheless, with time she started to make remarks questioning my leadership. At first, I took an avoidance position, hoping it would all go away with time (GreggU. (2017, October 27). However, it only escalated as one day; she verbally expressed her frustration towards me. I held numerous discussions with Joy to try to exercise empathic listening to strengthen our relationship and better understand how she felt (Emerald Works Limited. (n.d.). I asked questions to understand why she felt this way, acknowledged where I could have been at fault, and advocated that we were a team regardless of our positions (Ringer, J. (n.d.). At first, she will seem receptive to our conversation and strategy to move forward. Joy was given new responsibilities, she also participated in the same training I attended, and I provided training on areas she needed to be more comfortable with, as these were some of the skills she was interested in achieving. However, with time, she will revert to her initial state of mind, mainly because she found it hard to practice active listening, as Joy always found it hard to admit when she could have been wrong or could have done something differently. Whenever I spoke to her, she always prepared an answer to defend her viewpoint or rebut my suggestion.

If I faced this situation again, I would change the section where I avoided the first signs of conflict, hoping they would disappear while trying to accommodate as much as possible (GreggU. (2017, October 27). While accommodating the other person's interest is vital, compromising allows both parties to meet in a middle ground and work towards mending the conflict, potentially strengthening relationships and sparking innovation (Emerald Works Limited. (n.d.).

Questions:

• Provide your perspective on additional shared interests the parties had in the conflict your case study identified.
• Provide your perspective on how shared interests could have been used to generate additional potential courses of action in the conflict your colleague identified.
• Share an insight you gained from the case study that will help you in future conflict conversations. Support your thoughts using this week's Learning Resources.
• Provide references.

Answer rating: 100% (QA)

From the case study it is mentioned that the conflict between the individual and their subordinate Joy originated from unclear responsibilities and co... View the full answer