Running head: LITERATURE REVIEW 1

Journal Analysis

Student’s Name

Institution
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Journal Analysis

Workplace conflicts are the disagreements that occur in the work environments that can

be either productive or unproductive depending on their impact on the overall performance of an

organization. It requires appropriate management techniques and leadership for the

organizational leaders to be able to appropriately manage various organizational conflicts that if

not checked can be detrimental to a company’s performance. The use of teamwork in various

companies has become a common feature and as a result, those in charge have had to nurture and

grow teams through appropriate processes like conflict tasks and enabling psychological

environments. Appropriate leadership and management of the teams and conflicts can actually

lead to improvements in the overall performance of the companies.

Doucet et al (2009) starts his analysis of workplace conflict management by providing a

detailed analysis of other researchers previously conducted in the similar research area. Doucet et

al (2009) first notes that majority of the earlier research conducted by various scholars manly

focussed on the nature in which transformational, transactional and laissez faire modes of

leadership impacted greatly on a variety of variables such as employee satisfaction, performance

and commitment. Doucet et al (2009) recognizes that majority of these earlier studies share a

similarity of not including analyses of how such leadership styles are related to various conflicts.

Doucet et al (2009) refers to this situation as a paradox bearing in mind the strong convictions of

asserting that great leaders are excellent conflict managers yet they offer not writing that outline

the links between the various leadership styles and conflict management.

According to Doucet et al (2009), leaders get involved in organizational in various ways

such as; engaging in directly involving conflicts, engaging in subordinate conflicts and also

engaging in conflicts through his leadership styles to help get an optimal solution. Doucet et al
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(2009) states that a leader can directly engage in conflicts though avoidance, collaboration or

even through confrontation while he can also engage in subordinate conflicts through processes

such as arbitration or even informal mediation. Thus, the need to highlight the relationship

between leadership and conflicts pushes Doucet et al (2009) to conduct an analysis of the

relationship between leadership styles and conflict management.

Doucet et al (2009) focuses on the transformational theory in the analysis of leadership

styles. The transformational theory captures leadership styles such as the transactional,

transformational and laissez faire. Doucet et al (2009) notes that the transformational leadership

style majors on leaders, who have the ability to motivate, stimulate and rally their followers to

great heights in the pursuit of their set goals. According to Doucet et al (2009), transformational

leaders empower their subordinates, granting them the mandate to execute various duties to the

best of their potential. As a result, the subordinates have a chance to transcend and grow in their

professional service delivery for the good of the organization. Doucet et al (2009) notes that this

leadership styles involve dimensions such as idealized influence, intellectual stimulation, and

inspirational motivation and even individualized considerations. Doucet et al (2009) states that

idealized influence refers to the characteristics of various leaders that grants them the ability to

go beyond their personal interests for the sake of best organizational performance. In other

words, he considers these leaders to be selfless in their service for the organization. Employees

are believed to idolize such leaders as they remain true models of service for organizations as

indicated by Doucet et al (2009).

In the focus of workplace conflicts, Doucet et al (2009) recognizes that cognitive

conflicts and work related conflicts are the most common dimensions of conflicts experienced in

various organizations. Doucet et al (2009) indicates that both cognitive and relational conflicts
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have negative effects on employee performance in an organization. The researchers further state

that both dimenstional conflicts lead to a reduction in workplace satisfaction among all

employees. According to Doucet et al (2009), cognitive conflicts are strongly related to conflicts

of interest among various people. Doucet et al (2009) refers to conflict of interest as an instance

whereby parties have common goals but have different strategies to help realize the goals. Thus,

the contrast in the sorts of strategies required in the realization of the set goals within an

organization becomes a major source of workplace conflicts.

Additionally, Doucet et al (2009) indicates the existence of emotional conflicts in various

workplaces that result from the aggressions and resentments that lead to strained and hostile

relationships among individuals. Doucet et al (2009) notes that the leadership styles such as

transformational, transactional and lassez faire can play a significant role in the dissolution of

various workplace politics. By use of transformational leadership methodology, the tendency of

leaders to put organizational interest issues first enables them to develop mechanisms of sorting

issues among the subordinates as noted by Doucet et al (2009). It is noted by Doucet et al (2009)

and other earlier scholars that conflicts are an inherent tendency amongst various human beings

and the model figure of the leader can always serve to teach employees how best to handle

dissenting views. Rewarding of individuals who perform better and follow the company’s code

of conduct has also been tipped by transactional leaders to aid in the reduction of workplace

conflicts as noted by Doucet et al (2009). The laissez faire leadership style has equally been

identified by various researchers to aid in the process of handling conflicts as it allows conflicts

to solve themselves (Doucet et al., 2009). However, it is noted that the laissez faire technique is

inappropriate in handling workplace conflicts as may give room for minor disagreements to

degenerate to major conflicts as it never advocates for interventions (Doucet et al., 2009).
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Relation to the Case

Workplace conflicts are actually a common occurrence in the world today. With the

advent of technology and sophisticated learning and training that employees go through, it is

very possible for people to develop various mechanisms and modalities of attaining their set

goals and targets. The divergent and at times innovative ways of thought differ from one person

to another, hence probably resulting in arguments, aggressions and conflicts within an

organization. The use of appropriate intervention by the departmental or top management is vital

for the sustenance of a calm workplace environment. The various leadership styles such as the

transformational and transactional styles have been widely accredited to be crucial in the

dissolution of various workplace conflicts as the leaders engage their subordinates in finding

solutions. When the leaders are selfless, the employees equally find reason to foster the

organizational needs first to avoid derailing the positive organizational performance. As a result

of appropriate intervention of various leaders in conflict areas within an organization, harmony

and positive work environment gets generated that results in increased organizational output.

Hence, it remains crucially important that appropriate leadership styles be employed within

various organizations to ensure sustainable positive performance and increased employee

satisfaction levels.

In the analysis of the impact of conflict on team performance, Bradley et al (2012) starts

with a focus on existing literature that happens to hold divergent opinions on the impact of

relationship conflicts and task conflicts on the overall team performance. In relationship

conflicts, Bradley et al (2012) indicates that most research outlines a negative correlation with

positive team performance while task conflicts majorly indicate increased team performance in

most circumstances. Task conflicts improve team performance through better decision making
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processes and increased creativity although it can equally lead to negative impacts in case of

degeneration to relationship conflicts according to Bradley et al (2012).

Psychological safety refers to instances whereby individuals find peace of mind to

undertake various actions as they feel secure in their actions or service delivery process.

According to Bradley et al (2012), task conflicts improve the overall level of team performance

and creativity provided the team members enjoy a high degree of psychological safety. Bradley

et al (2012) thus remains convinced that task conflicts play an enormous role in enhancing the

individual performance of team members through psychological safety that helps boost harmony

within an organization. However, Bradley et al (2012) notes those moderations in the

relationship between adequate psychological environment and how best conflicts are solved are

yet to be strongly tested. Thus the impact of psychological environment safety and task conflicts

in team outcomes are yet to be tested to maximum possible levels (Bradley et al., 2012).

Bradley et al (2012) outlines team performance to be a reference to how individuals

perform as a group while being evaluated by other organizational staffs. Organizational policies

like those from the human resources departments have been strongly recognized to contribute to

the formation of teams in organizations and the various team interaction dynamics influence its

performance as noted by Bradley et al (2012). The major challenges that face teams and their

performances are multidimensional conflicts in the nature of relationship conflicts and task

conflicts as outlined by Bradley et al (2012). The researchers Bradley et al (2012) describe

relationship conflicts as those that emanate from individual interpersonal incompatibilities

among team members resulting in issues such as annoyance and overall creation of animosity.

Task conflicts on the other hand refer to the variations that arise amongst team members as a

result of differences in viewpoints with regard to their opinions and ideas.

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Bradley et al (2012) notes that some recent research outlines negative relationships

between task conflicts and positive team performance as evidenced by the type of meta-analysis

employed. The main argument of these recent findings is that the arguments within the teams are

not healthy and can result in everybody demanding to implement their viewpoints hence

resulting in negative team performance (Bradley et al., 2012). In the analysis of the impact of

team performance under psychological safety, Bradley et al (2012) notes that most of the team

members feel secure and free to risk take as none of their view point’s remains subject to being

reprimanded. Such an environment results in the contribution of several crucially important ideas

that can help the team perform better.

Bradley et al (2012) notes that psychological safety is distinct from other team aspects

like team cohesion and trust as it actually literally encourage individuals to contribute more ideas

for increased team output. It is additionally revealed by various researches that safe

psychological environments boost the learning culture and ability of team members in addition to

leading to increased team performance. Bradley et al (2012) notes that safe psychological

environments boost ethical leadership and voice behaviour. This indicates that employees feel

comfortable and free to engage and challenge their leaders when the environment is enabling and

conducive (Bradley et al., 2012). The researchers additionally note that inasmuch as good

psychological environment boosts individual confidence and performance, it also leads to the

development of various disagreements that can be perceived to be healthy and thus leading to

improved team performance as noted by Bradley et al (2012).

Bradley et al (2012) indicates that task conflicts should be highly encouraged within

teams as they help cultivate the culture of rigorous creativity and healthy decision making to help

improve the overall team performance. Avoidance of task conflicts can be counterproductive as
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can lead to the loss of various healthy points, opinions and decisions as noted by Bradley et al

(2012). For task conflicts to be very healthy and productive to the various teams, the team

participants should avoid taking the dissenting views personal as this could dilute the quality of

the decisions and finally result in counterproductive outcomes as noted by Bradley et al (2012).

Thus, the task conflicts should be coupled up with safe psychological environments to help

cushion against the degeneration of arguments to levels that can be counterproductive to team

performance.

Relation to the Case Study

Team performance remains an integral part of improved performance of various

organizations around the world. The contributions of individual team members in teams play a

major role in the establishment and improvement of the overall output of the various teams. Task

conflicts and enabling psychological environments have been outlined as the major bases of

increased team performances, resulting in overall increment in the level of company

performance. Teams that espouse task conflicts and enabling psychological environments reap

highly as they encounter rigorous creativity, varied opinion deliveries and even improved

decision making processes. This means that proper use of team work in various organizations is

one of the best ways of getting the best out of their employees in a very productive manner that

most probably automatically translates to increased organizational performance. Organizations

that are ambitious with concrete plans of achieving their targets and rapid growth in the modern

era thus ought to espouse proper use of teamwork. Well constructed teams with the necessary

holding factors like conflict tasks and safe psychological environments can thus be trusted in the

execution of various tasks as research highly rats their contribution to improved departmental

and overall company performance in a wide variety of ways.

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References

Bradley, B., Brown, K., Klotz, A., Hamdan, M., & Postlethwaite, P. (2012). Reaping the
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Benefits of Task Conflict in Teams: The Critical Role of Team Psychological Safety

Climate. Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 97, No. 1. pp. 151-158.

Doucet, O., Poitras, J., & Chenevert, D. (2009). The Impact of Leadership on Workplace

Conflicts. International Journal of Conflict Management, vol. 20. No 4. pp. 340-354.