a) I very strongly believe the thought that every human being on the face of earth is political

in some form or other but some are vocal and some are quiet about it. I am in the former group

and have never stepped back from saying that I am a political person. I like to strategies, form

groups and above all I always am vocal about my thoughts on matters and strongly stand my

ground. I like to take a coherent approach in any argument and appreciate constructive criticism.

My political tendencies do immensely impact my career and somewhat of it is also because I

personally am very vocal about my standings on matters. At my current workplace, I am

recognized as someone who is competitive yet collaborative and is honest to speak up of things.

This tendencies are well noticed by the management team and I was promoted to train as team

leader within one rotation of joining (In traditional approach it takes a minimum of two

rotations).

Politics and career are almost an inseparable mix in my opinion. My political tendencies adds

positively to my career progression as it displays my honest persona, the power of my

negotiations and to lead while displaying my emotions & passions for specific matters. And I

think this allows people to connect to you very strongly be it in workplace, in education or in day

to day life.

b) I can relate very clearly to an incident where I felt I was the victim of internal employee

politics. During my second month at my current workplace, I was issued a warning letter

concerning my late arrival to work on day one as the company fosters a strict no late entry

policy. However, the very next week I noticed one of colleague arriving late to work for two

consecutive days but she wasn’t given any official warning. Upon trying an attempt to inquire
with the manager. My inquiry was dismissed with a note that this wasn’t in my job description

and advised to concentrate on my own work. With sadness and curiosity, I turned to my team

leader and I discovered that my colleague and manager are sisters. This act of favoritism clearly

showed how strict company rules were bent by the ones in control of the store. That day I felt so

powerless and that I couldn’t do much as it would make my manager angry and I could become

his target which would mean a very difficult situation to sustain in the job. It was very sad and

mentally draining.

c) A critical competency for today’s working professionals is to understand that we each

have our own way of dealing with conflict. I believe the art of knowing when and how to use

each style can help control conflict and lead to an improved working environment, resulting in a

better bottom line for both individuals and companies.

Looking into all the times that I have been into any form of conflict, it is fair to say that my

native conflict is collaborating style.

Collaborating Style: I am always assertive and cooperative, and mostly try collaborate and

attempt to work with others to identify the major reasons for the conflict and then devote a fair

amount of time to derive a solution that fully satisfies concerns of everyone primarily involved in

the conflict.

Although, I take a little different approach at time but for over 90% of the conflicts I have faced

was successfully solved using collaborating style. This style has served me very well all

throughout my career, as it never involves avoiding anyone’s concerns and decisions are made

that satisfies both parties involved. This style is particularly works well for me as I always keen
on building a long term relationship and seeing I value the outcome of a conflict very much. I do

not under most circumstances ever wish to cultivate negative feelings, and therefore this style of

conflict handling is best suited to how I operate as a person. However, I feel that this style

sometimes get very time consuming and mentally draining to get to an outcome that satisfies

both the parties.

d) As discussed in the previous question, as a person I place extremely high value in

building long term relationships and almost never wish to promote negative feelings. Hence, a

collaborative negotiation style is best suited as it follows the “I win, you win” model. It goes

hand in hand with my native conflict handling style – for e.g. as a collaborative negotiator I put

focus on making sure of involvement of all parties and emphasize that all parties have their needs

met when an agreement is reached. This style of negotiation has been of such great use to me at

my current workplace where I have to deal with many customers on a daily basis. I am inclined

towards strengthening, establishing, and building relationships without compromising my

company’s best interests and I am able to achieve that easily with collaborative style of

negotiations. However, I must mention that sometimes I feel I am more collaborative than the

other party is/or willing to be and that makes me emotional at times. 9

References

https://www.waldenu.edu/connect/newsroom/walden-news/2017/0530-whats-your-conflict-

management-style

https://www.quora.com/Do-you-consider-yourself-political

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Have_politics_in_any_way_affected_your_career_advancement_w

hether_in_research_or_in_education

https://www.waldenu.edu/connect/newsroom/walden-news/2017/0530-whats-your-conflict-

management-style

https://shapironegotiations.com/what-are-the-5-negotiation-styles/

https://dictionary.reverso.net/english-definition/politically+charged