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Introduction
Conflict is natural. The onus of managing the conflict between members of an organization may often be on the leader of the organization who could intervene to check its escalation into formal dispute, reduce it to the level of being least damaging, resolve it to facilitate cordial interpersonal relations or harness it as the primary strength of the groups and teams to enhance organizational effectiveness. How the leader/manager will actually manage the conflict may be determined by his/her leadership orientation or leadership style. Support for this contention can be traced in conflict management research which has primarily focused on the interaction of conflict-situation and person-situation (Knapp et al., 1988). Different individuals may select different conflict management styles depending on their personality, beliefs, values, behavioral orientation and various contextual factors. Benardin and Alvaras (1976) and Zafar (2011) reported that managers with different management styles manage conflict differently.
Various scholars have tried to measure peoples’ conflict management styles using a variety of classifications. Deutsch (1949) conceptualized conflict as a simple cooperation-competition dichotomy which drew criticism from various researchers for its simplicity (Ruble and Thomas, 1976; Smith, 1987). As a result, Blake and Mouton (1964) developed a new two-dimensional grid for classifying conflict management styles which again triggered a volley of proposals for revision in his framework. Thomas and Kilmann (1974) suggested a two-dimensional framework comprising five predominant modes of managing conflict. These five modes, derived from the two dimensions of assertiveness and cooperativeness, were: avoiding; competing; accommodating; compromising and collaborating. Another conceptualization of conflict management style was given by Rahim and Bonoma (1979). They proposed two dimensions for differentiating various styles for resolving conflict: concern for self and concern for others.
Persons having “concern for self” will tend to satisfy their own concerns while resolving the conflict. On the other hand, persons having “concern for others” will be more inclined to satisfy the needs and concern of others in their effort to resolve conflict (Rahim and Bonoma, 1979). When combined, these two dimensions result in five specific styles of conflict management – integrating, dominating, obliging, avoiding and compromising. The integrating styles involve a balance of high concern for others and high concern for self. Avoiding style, on the other hand, is characterized by low concern...