Professional Conflict

Disagreements in the work place is a common occurrence and is sometimes necessary to make progress or positive changes.  The difference between whether the conflict is productive or unproductive is the most important component to conflict and how it can be resolved.  O’Hair, Wiemann, Mullin, & Teven (2015), notes that productive conflict can encourage healthy debates and decision-making, and unproductive conflict can negatively impact relationships and communication styles with others.  Unproductive conflict can occur when the communication climate is negative, when power is unbalanced, and when attitudes towards conflict are not aligned (O’Hair et al, 2015).  In the last year, I experienced all the listed characteristics of unproductive conflict with a colleague and learned a lot about my own communication style and others.

My current position at my school falls under three different roles: Toddler Teacher, Infant/Toddler Head Teacher, and Program Director (Assistant to the Director).  Our school is small and could not afford to budget out these three positions to three different individuals, so this requires a lot of code-switching for myself between roles and environments I am in throughout the day.  Conflict arose when my co-teacher in the toddler classroom began to feel the power was unbalanced in our interactions and she differed in how she dealt with it from myself.  Rather than speaking with me about these feelings, she began taking the conflict personally and withdrew from communication all together.  She started to dwell on the feelings and took it as a personal assault, without myself having any knowledge the conflict existed.  The climate of our classroom quickly shifted from a supportive climate to an uncertain climate between us two teachers.  Within a few weeks of this taking place, the children started reacting as well with challenging behaviors.  They could sense we were not a team anymore it seemed.

Personally, I could sense something was unsettled, but was unable to detect exactly what the conflict was.  Because of the power dynamic between my colleague and I, we utilized a third person to manage our conflict.  This provided an opportunity for both of us to share our feelings with each other in a safe and supportive atmosphere.  I learned that my colleague had felt I was not acknowledging her feelings often enough when communicating in the classroom, which in turn created a feeling of unimportance when working with me.  Unknowingly, I was trying to model avoiding personal conversations in the classroom with children present as the supervisor of the classroom and my co-teacher interpreted this avoidance differently.  Hindsight, if I would have addressed the issue of personal conversations in the classroom in the beginning, there would have been clear expectations of our communication with one another based on the context of the situation and environment.  I wanted to hear about her personal stories and feelings, just not while working with children.  

The best thing about the conflict that took place, is that we were able to get through it.  We both were able to acknowledge it was a true miscommunication that took place and could be remedied.  “Misunderstandings are a common-and regrettable-cause of conflict.” (O’Hair et al, 2015, p. 217).  I regret that I wasn’t clear about my intentions and that I missed my colleague’s cues that she needed her feelings acknowledged differently.  However, I am a better communicator now because of this experience.  And, my relationship with this teacher is stronger now than it has ever been in working together for the last seven years.  Our disagreement truly became a productive conflict in the end, once we could understand each other’s communication styles and attitudes, we contributed to our professional relationship and its growth.

Reference

O'Hair, D., Wiemann, M., Mullin, D. I., & Teven, J. (2015). Real communication (3rd. ed). New York: Bedford/St. Martin's.