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Conflict in Teams

Washing one’s hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral. (Paulo Freire)

Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict. (William Ellery Channing)

Key Learning Points

  • The organizational causes of team conflicts
  • Types of conflict in teams
  • How to resolve team conflicts
  • Interpersonal conflicts in teams and how to manage them
  • How to manage difficult team members

Team Conflicts

Conflict is not only endemic but, if it is constructive, desirable in teams (Deutsch, 1973). Constructive team conflict can be a source of excellence, quality and creativity. At the same time we know that conflict in teams can be interpersonally destructive and lead to poor team performance or the break up of the team altogether (De Dreu and van de Vliert, 1997). This occurs especially where the conflict takes on a personal quality which results in team members attacking one another, or denigrating each other’s skills, abilities or functioning in some way. This is unhealthy for both the individuals concerned and for the team as a whole. Although job insecurity or work overload can be major causes of stress, it is often the conflicts with colleagues that keep us awake at night (Romanov et al., 1996). Why do these occur and what can we do to prevent or overcome them?

Types of Team Conflict

A systematic review of all the research on team conflict suggested that high ...

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