6.2 Constructive Conflict Flashcards
An awareness on the part of the parties involved of discrepancies, incompatible wishes, or irreconcilable desired between members
Recognition of conflict
Conflict is an inherent aspect of group functioning
Teams need to manage conflict carefully in order to garner potential benefits and avoid possible risks
Constructive conflict
Prompts examination activities (negotiating, interpreting, and evaluating knowledge) and enables consensus (agreement within the team) which results in better integration of knowledge into action (accomodation activities)
Both conflict and consensus can be good for a team
Because each moves the team forward through the cognitive cycle and toward greater effectiveness
When the leader and the team perceive differing amounts of constructive conflict, this perceptual distance regarding the degree to which constructive conflict is occurring deters the team from utilizing catalysts
Hence, any lack of perceptual congruence may create problems
Team performance should be highest when
The leader’s and the team’s perceptions agree and when constructive conflict is considered to be high rather than low, since constructive conflict benefits team performance
Group ratings of the openness of communication and supportiveness associated with conflict resolution are
Positively associated with group ratings of satisfaction and performance
For teams that have external leaders
These leaders may play a pivotal role in the management of team conflict
When a leader realizes that a team needs assistance in managing conflicts
He or she can play important boundary spanning and linking roles, helping expose the team to new knowledge sources and enabling greater variety of information to be gathered and shared
If a leader perceives that the team is handling conflict constructively (the leader perceives more constructive conflict than does the team)
He or she is unlikely to engage in these activities, and this may hinder performance
If the leader believes the team is not handling conflict constructively (when the leader perceives less conflict than does the team)
He or she may provide unnecessary intervention that will be more detrimental to team performance than would lack of intervention.
This unnecessary intervention could be demoralizing for a team that perceives it is functioning well, hindering the team from moving forward through consensus to reach the accommodation stage of collective cognition and ultimately decreasing performance
