The response must be 250 words and use at least 2 scholarly citation(s) in APA format. Any sources cited must have been published within the last five years. Acceptable sources include texts, articles, presentations, the Bible, blogs, videos, etc.
Textbook: Raines, S. (2020). Conflict Management for Managers: Resolving Workplace, Client, and Policy Disputes (2nd ed.). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN: 9781538119938
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Executive Summary
The individual tasked with resolving this conflict is the Deputy Chief of Police responsible for the Operations Bureau. The Deputy Chief’s first course of action will be to determine the root cause of the conflict. Therefore, this resolution process will occur in a series of phases. Prior to bringing the parties in conflict together, the Deputy Chief must learn as much as he can about the previous work history and any disagreements or conflicts that may have occurred between Major Brown and Lieutenant Smith in the past. Diagnosing the issues before intervening in a conflict situation is an important step for ensuring a positive work environment, which allows an organization to achieve and maintain high-performing and effective teams (Anestaki, 2016). This will be achieved through several informal meetings with people who would have knowledge of the previous interactions between Major Brown and Lieutenant Smith. The intent is to use the information that was obtained during these meetings as the bases for a series of discussions with Major Brown and Lieutenant Smith. The Deputy Chief will conduct individual meetings with each party separately before attempting to bring them together to discuss the conflict and seek some form of resolution. The goal is to attempt informal managerial mediation (Raines, 2020). It is obvious that there is clearly a lack of trust between Major Brown and Lieutenant Smith, these initial conversations will be an attempt to conduct a proper assessment of the conflict situation. Then deploy constructive conflict management strategies, starting with attempting to reestablish an environment of trust (Elgoibar et al., 2017). It is important for this conflict to be managed and resolved in a manner to ensure that all parties involved in the conflict do not experience unnecessary emotional stress during the resolution of the conflict (Mills & Mene, 2020). The elephant in the room is that this conflict is between a senior white male commander and a subordinate black female commander, this must be addressed first if there is to be any hope of conflict resolution. Therefore, the first meeting will occur with Lieutenant Smith because the Deputy Chief wants to demonstrate fairness and eliminate the possibility that there could later be an accusation of showing deference to Major Brown because he is the senior commander. The purpose of the first meeting with Lieutenant Smith is to immediately address her concerns regarding race and gender. The Deputy Chief understands that generally women seem to be more sensitive to conflicts and tend to report more interpersonal types of them while facing disputes based on the assumption of the society on gender stereotypes and work responsibilities (Prause & Mujtaba, 2015).
The first meeting with Major Brown will focus on providing coaching and assuring him that just because the Deputy Chief had to intervene, it didn’t mean the executive command staff lost confidence in his ability to manage his station. However, there will also be a discussion on his style of leadership and his ability to make course corrections when the situation dictates. The meetings with Major Brown and Lieutenant Smith will occur outside the typical office setting. The reasoning behind this decision is that the Deputy Chief is hoping the relaxed and unofficial setting will minimize the stress commanders may be experiencing and facilitate a more productive discussion. The individual meetings will occur until the Deputy Chief believes he has a solid understanding of the cause of the conflict. The intention is to break down barriers that are preventing the commanders from communicating effectively and obtain some preliminary concession. Once this has been accomplished, the Deputy Chief will bring the two commanders together for a series of face-to-face meetings. The intent of the Deputy Chief’s intervention is to demonstrate support for the Major and the Lieutenant. The expected outcome from the intervention is to have the two commanders understand that it is ok to have differences, but they must set their differences aside and focus on the mission.
