Becoming a Conflict Competent Leader: How You and Your Organization Can Manage Conflict Effectively, 2nd Edition

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Managing Your Emotions

If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow.

—Chinese Proverb

Conflict and emotions go hand in hand. Yet it is only in recent years that researchers have expanded the attention paid to the emotional aspects of conflict. At the same time, new discoveries have been made about how people can manage their emotions. We believe that these developments contribute valuable tools to help people become conflict competent. In this chapter, we will examine how conflict emotions emerge, why they are critical to address, and what you can do to manage them effectively.

The Origin and Nature of Conflict Emotions

When conflict arises, human beings often feel threatened. Our survival instincts ...