Conflicts are a part of our everyday lives and conflicts occur mainly because each individual is different and everyone has a different mindset to look at different things Workplace relations are something with which we have to develop a flexible attitude not based on our personal judgments but an attitude that will eventually help the organization to prosper. A few very common types of conflicts that arise and cause challenges for workplace relations are:
Style Clashes
As every individual is different and has his/her own way of writing, reading, speaking etc; therefore, this might give rise to conflicts which ultimately affect the workplace relations. For example, a marketing department manager may come up with a colorful report with lots of advertisements regarding a product but a finance department manager might not like it and would like to have something simpler and more number based. Therefore, style differences cause lots of conflicts due to which managing good workplace relations becomes difficult.
Background Clashes
This is one of the most common situations for conflicts to arise and thus creating nuisance for good workplace relations. Nowadays in multi-national companies people come from different regions, they belong to different ethnicity, have different educational backgrounds etc. All this certainly creates a room for different levels of understanding for each individual which ultimately lead to conflicts as people are not holding the same school of thought regarding some issue. Therefore, nowadays in business studies, emphasis on dealing with people from diverse backgrounds is highly encouraged so that conflicts can be minimized and better workplace relations can be established.
Interdependence Clashes
These types of conflicts arise in team work. When the entire project is divided into parts and your work gets delayed because someone else did not do his/her work on time, then the chances of such conflicts gets very high. They are extremely common reason for poor workplace relations and they can lead to serious impacts on the company’s overall performance too
Leadership Clashes
These types of conflicts mainly occur between the boss and the employee. It all basically depends on the workplace relations of a boss and an employee and what type of leadership style does the boss actually applies. For example a boss might be authoritative and likes the employee to follow only his/her instructions or maybe, a boss is democratic and likes his employee to share and express his/her views; in both these cases, the employee should be flexible enough to avoid conflicts and get acquainted with the style of the boss otherwise conflicts arise and poor workplace relations are established.
Therefore, knowing about the most common types of conflicts that can affect workplace relations, it is important to act smartly and deal with your colleagues intelligently. It is only then that you will be able to develop better, lasting and good workplace relations.