BMGT001 Individual Reflection Report

Introduction 

Conflict is a process which starts when one party thinks that another party has negatively influenced something that the first party care about. The traditional concept of conflict is a belief where management of an organisation thinks that all types of conflict are harmful and organisation must avoid the conflict. However, as stated by Rahim (2017), conflict is absolutely necessary for the team to perform efficiently. In the non-traditional approach of conflict management within an organisation, management uses an authoritative command which refers to the resolution of organisation conflict by the third party. Therefore, formal authority takes the resolution to solve the problem by offering a win or lose outcome to conflict resolution. Formal authority decides within the organisation which party is right in the conflict and formal authority also solves the conflict addressing the issues of conflict. The authoritative command is a short-term approach to solve the workplace conflict and authoritative command can divide the employees by pressurising the employer to select a winner in a conflict; however, it does not solve the actual issue of conflict (Annick & Vincent 2018). Within an organisation, conflict is a common phenomenon and it is unavoidable; authoritative command can control and minimise the conflict through proper resolution. The thesis statement of the study is to express a different opinion on seeking resolution of the conflict between internal staff members through authoritative management style.   

Obeying the leaders’ command 

The authoritative command is based on mainly formal authority which is vested with the leaders and the subordinates of the organisation need to obey the commands of the leaders. The leaders play a significant role to solve the conflict management in authoritative command conflict management as the leaders listen to both parties so that the leaders can come to a conclusion. As stated by Bourne et al. (2015), leaders' command and control structure, course development process and manning helps in mitigating the conflict management within the organisation. The team leader of a team can solve the issue between two members as the leaders follow the command function in the arena of stabilisation operation within a team. I also think that leaders can define the job description to the team members so that the team members must know what is expected of them. Therefore, a chain of commands from the team leaders can help to solve the conflict with proper communication from the leaders. In addition, the subordinates within the organisation need to listen to conflict negotiation verdict. The leaders of an organisation generally define the acceptable behaviour as a positive step to avoid conflict (Helms & Oliver 2015). The leaders create the framework for using delegation, authority statement and the encouraging sound business practices to solve the conflict between the team members. Authoritative command of leadership is formal and official orders so that the subordinates must listen to this. The leaders communicate their authoritative command to both parties to reduce the level of conflict.

Communicate its desire to the parties involved 

The formal authority listens to both parties involved in the conflict scenario and the formal authority communicates its desire to both parties. Within an organisation, subordinates have various temperaments, personalities, philosophies and the subordinates may bind to have the interpersonal conflicts (Stepanova 2015). Interpersonal conflict can arise from the status of two employees, the economic condition of the two employees, the wrong leadership style chosen from the leaders and stress of the employees. In most of the situation, within a team, the leaders want the team members must share their thought process. Therefore, the shared goals and thinking process of the two members may not match. In this situation, conflict can arise and most of the cases, affective conflict arises from the different emotions of the subordinates. The formal authority communicates the conflict resolution in an accurate, concise, clear and timely manner so that the conflict of the employees does not spread to other employees (Annick & Vincent 2018). When the leaders communicate the command, the leaders consider the emotion of the employees. It is very necessary for the performance and health of the organisation to accept the conflict and address with effective conflict resolution process.

Achieving short-term reduced levels of conflict 

The main purpose of the authoritative command conflict management is to achieve the short-term reduced level of conflict between the two parties. The authoritative command is a short-term process to solve the workplace conflict to choose a ‘winner' between the two parties. From my perspective, in most of the large and medium companies, government and unions; they have dispute resolution which may include the process of arbitration and review boards. In addition, the authoritative command is effective at finding a solution quickly as the speed is the key to doing the business. Formal authority solves the conflict within no time; however, the efficiency of the solution is still questionable. As opposed to the collaborative approach of conflict management, where both parties are involved in the discussion and the underlying satisfaction of both parties lie in the collaborative approach of conflict management. According to Saeed et al. (2014), collaboration style of conflict negotiation is an efficient way to solve the problem where both parties discuss to solve the problem; however, it is time-consuming. The authoritative command can reduce the degree of conflict between two subordinates by giving the judgement as soon as possible. In authoritative command, the leaders can use the behavioural change process with human relations to reduce the cause of conflict.

Fails to treat the cause of the conflict

Most importantly, the authoritative command fails to treat the cause of the conflict between two internal staffs as it just provides the judgement to solve the conflict in hurry. I personally think that authoritative command is becoming an outdated style in conflict resolution as the management thinks that collaboration approach is more effective where the management gets the chance to talk to both parties. Collaboration approach is more effective in the modern workplace as the workplace is needed to be flexible and adaptable (Helms & Oliver 2015). The authoritative command fails to reach the core problem of the conflict as it solves the superficial issue taking one of the sides of the parties. The drawback of the authoritative command is that if this management technique is used improperly, it may backfire on the formal authority. The authoritative command can make the conflict larger between the employees and employer if it is not treated well. Authoritative command brings out the win-loss outcome where the manager selects to ‘winner' in the conflict in order to solve the issue as quick as possible. It causes challenge to authoritative body and it brings the issue to the legitimacy as the ‘loser' side feels no longer valued in the organisation and the employees begin to be non-cooperative. In the organisation, internal staff members can be non-cooperative as failure to solve the issue to the core may lead to resign the employees from the organisation. Managerial incompetence can lead to the poor retention rate in the organisation.

Conclusions 

It has been noted that authoritative command fails to identify the issues and the leaders fail to search for the shared values. In addition, the leaders just explore the possible solutions choosing one of the winners from the conflict negotiation. The authoritative command is to be most effective as it can outline the employer-employee relationship and it can also create the boundaries among the departments of the organisation. The authoritative command does not use the compromise to settle the dispute requires the parties to listen and understand to opposing the counterpoints. Compromise is successful in conflict resolution when both the parties have the range of outcomes which are an open consideration. I think that authoritative command leads to employees leaving the organisation as most of the employees leave the managers, not the organisation. The immediate supervisors are the reason behind the employees’ development and demotion. I believe authoritative command can bring potential negative if the management does not use in a proper way. Authoritative conflict does not seek the proper resolution between the internal members as it just reduces the level of conflict and cannot reach to the cause of the conflict. The formal authority within the organisation cannot solve the conflict as it just communicates the desires of the management to the parties involved.

Reference List 

Annick & Vincent. 2018. Conflict Resolution. Available at: https://www.soencouragement.org/conflict-resolution.htm [Accessed 6th Sept 2018]

Bourne, P.A., Clarke-Christian, J., Sharpe-Pryce, C., Hudson-Davis, A. & Francis, C., 2015. ‘Strategies for Dealing with Violence in Schools: Perceived Effectiveness of Conflict Management Strategies Used by Education Leaders in Reducing Students' Disagreements’. Psychiatry, vol. 18, no. 248, p.2.

Helms, W.S. & Oliver, C., 2015. ‘Radical settlements to conflict: Conflict management and its implications for institutional change.’ Journal of Management & Organization, vol. 2, no. 4, pp.471-494.

Rahim, M.A., 2017. Managing conflict in organizations. Abingdon: Routledge.

Saeed, T., Almas, S., Anis-ul-Haq, M. & Niazi, G.S.K., 2014. ‘Leadership styles: relationship with conflict management styles’. International Journal of Conflict Management, vol. 25, no. 3, pp.214-225.

Stepanova, O., 2015. ‘Conflict resolution in coastal resource management: Comparative analysis of case studies from four European countries’. Ocean & Coastal Management, vol. 103, pp.109-122.