ORG 200

Conflict Styles and Leadership Styles Self Assessments

1. With respect to conflict styles, what were your scores for each of the five conflict
styles dimensions -(Accommodating, Compromising, Integrating, Avoiding,
and Dominating)? Do you agree with this assessment?  Why or why not?

Accommodating – 5.2

Compromising - 6 

Integrating - 7 

Avoiding – 4.3 

Dominating – 5.6

I would agree with the assessment. I think overall, I like to keep the peace and let
the entire team contribute and am open to suggestions on how to do something;
however, I will step in and stand my ground if I feel I know a better way or have
some past experience on the topic.

2. Provide an example from your own life of your experience with this style of
conflict (either using the style yourself or as employed by someone else in a
conflict situation).

You may not be shocked because of my low avoidance score, but I do not have
much conflict in my life. An example I can think of is more of a group problem solving
example. When COVID hit and everyone had to work from home many employees
were re-deployed to the “gig economy” which was interesting as we were grouped
with people we had not worked with before and were given a unique opportunity to
tackle new tasks that we had not been presented with before.
In this, collaboration was my go-to. Not only did we have a new group of people with
all different skills, but we were all new to the task at hand as well. I was put on a
project were we had to create a process for reaching out to employees that had
gone out on PAL due to COVID. There were debates on the best way to do it and
how to keep track of new people, keep notes on each, and what the proper
messaging was for the employees. In the end, we all gave our introductions, shared
our strengths and then went on to brainstorm and share ideas.
In the end, I was able to assign roles for the group and all parties in the group were
able to come to agreement on different processes for our project. Ultimately our
process was then shared with other divisions in the company and was a success!

3. Discuss one thing that works pretty well about your preferred conflict style; in
other words, what is one advantage for you about it?  Discuss one disadvantage
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Conflict Styles and Leadership Styles Self Assessments

you’ve found in using your preferred conflict style.  Finally, what is one specific
way you could improve your general approach to conflict?

Because I dislike confrontation and embrace teamwork, I think my style of conflict

suites me well as it satisfies both collaboration and diminished the need for being
uncooperative and unassertive. A strength would be having the ability to work
around that to get everyone’s thoughts, understand their experience/mental models
on the conflict and then work together to come to an understanding. Dominance
comes in when you need to move forward and decide for the group.

One disadvantage I have found is the time it may take to solve a conflict or when
people simply do not get along. I think with more time and more exposure to conflict
in the work place, I will be able to work on being a bit more dominant to allow for
collaboration, but not let it drag on to long where people are left without direction or
tasks to move forward.

4. According to the leadership style self-assessment, what was your Hersey-

Blanchard leadership style (Telling, Selling, Participating, Delegating)?  Do you
agree with this assessment?  Why or why not?

According to the leadership style assessment, I have a selling style; however, I am

not sure I agree with this, as I feel it really depends on the project/group that you are
leading. I feel if I knew the group I would be more in line with the participating style.

5. Provide examples from your own life where you experienced each of the
leadership style-related behaviors (telling, selling, participating, and delegating).

The example I discussed above pairs well with the participating style, as I was 100%
the person to share my ideas and also facilitated the decisions made for the group
on who was doing what and what needed to be done. An example of a time where I
experienced a telling style was with when I worked at a pizza shop in high school.
My manager was also the owner of the store, and I will never forget this, he had a
specific way that I needed to get ice out of the ice machine because it was “the most
effective way.”

Further, a time where I experienced a selling style was with another manager at the
Hard Rock Café I worked at in Australia that would not make me do things a specific
way; however, he would constantly suggest I do things his way. I would not be
penalized if I did not, and we had a great relationship, but he was always trying to
get me to buy into his way of doing things to keep them uniform. Finally, my last
manager had a delegating style with me, as he had complete trust in me that I knew
how to do my job and was confident in my results. For example, he would let me find
candidates in whatever fashion I felt was best and did not care how it was done, as
long as it was done and the business was happy!
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Conflict Styles and Leadership Styles Self Assessments

6. Review the information regarding Tuckman’s Stages of Team Development

model.  Contrast Hersey-Blanchard leadership style with the various stages of
team development. Do you see a connection? Discuss team leadership
behaviors that you think would be applicable to each of Tuckman’s stages of
team development.

Woah! Huge parallels here. Telling is related to the forming stage, selling is the
storming stage, norming to participating and finally, performing to delegating.

To start, I feel that a telling style shows and could argue needed when forming a
group. People in the beginning need to be told what to do, what their place is and
what is expected of them. Guidance can be essential in the beginning of the forming
in the group and if done properly will help with the retention, happiness, and
performance of the individual. On another note, this is another reason onboarding is
so important to get right. Moreover, a selling style works well with the storming stage
of a group, “as the team begins to more towards its goals, members discover that
the team can’t live up to all of their […] expectations.” When people reach this stage,
they can look to their leader for guidance, allowing the leader to start to utilize two-
way communication to see where they are at as well as give advice.

Next, during the norming stage a participating leadership style is effective as the
group member feels more confident in their role, but may still need some input from
their leader. The group member is more effective in their role and is competent in
making some decisions for their own. Finally, we can see the benefit of a delegating
style in the performing stage. At this point in the team’s development, members are
able to solve problems on their own and do not need their leaders to make their
decisions for them. Trust has been made!

7. With respect to the LMX instrument, what were your scores on each of the
dimensions (Linking, Loyalty, Contribution, Professional Respect)?   Based on
these results, what transformational leadership behaviors do you exhibit (or have
you experienced in a leader/follower relationship) that you believe are most relevant
with respect to someone who seeks to be an effective transformational leader?

Linking – 9

Loyalty – 9

Contribution – 9

Professional Respect – 8

To reflect on this, I feel that my relationship with my manager is one that I aspire to have with my team
someday! The relationship had most of the behaviors that were discussed in the book; however, the
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Conflict Styles and Leadership Styles Self Assessments

ones that stood out most were charisma, inspirational motivation and intellectual stimulation. From the
moment I started he had me write down my career goals, create a game plan to get there and had me
take courses through Gartner to help grow my personal brand. He had charisma in the way that he
always believed in my abilities and was there to help if I needed it.

Overall, I am so sad that I was furloughed due to COVID and was not able to stay with my team and grow
under my leaders; however, I am so thankful that my first corporate experience went the way it did, as I
have learned early on what type of leader I want to be and what kind of environment I excel in.