Respond to 2 Colleagues 1 paragraph each

Respond to at least two of your colleagues in one of more of the following ways:

· Offer an alternative example that will further inform your colleague’s perspective about finding ways to work with or manage difficult people.

· Offer alternative or additional strategies that you believe effective for diffusing potential conflicts that may occur due to different personality types.

· Offer other lessons you learned from reading through the posts that your colleague made and the Learning Resources from this week.

Note what you have learned and/or any insights that you have gained because of the comments your colleagues made.

1st Colleague to respond to:

Several years ago there was this situation where i had to deal with a difficult person at my work place. I  use to work for this organization called  Head Start pre- school.  There were this one particular person, she was over the education department  that lead the teachers into making sure the lesson plans and students files were organize and updated to the standards that she was looking for. For any little thing she was always on me asking me did I do this, are my students files ready to be checked, (she will then say make sure they are in ordered because if not you will be written up) I thought that she only gave me a hard time but come to find out that she was like that with just about all the other teachers at the school.

What i did in that situation dealing with that difficult person that was in charge but really she wasn’t my boss. So, one day i spoke with my principle who was over me and i explained to her how the Education manager talked to me  and how she made me feel like i was doing my job right. So, after i spoke with my principle.  I did as my principle told me to do so i  just bit my tongue and remained to stay humble, and obeyed the difficult lady  orders on how she wanted  the lesson plans and how the students files should be. I just had to ask her a question one day to break the ice of how everything was so tensed between us. I asked her how long have she been working for the school? and I  asked  her  how am i doing with my work assignments that she is requesting? The impact of me  breaking the ice came out to be less painless. After that conversation things changed between us she wasn’t hard on me or talking to me any kind of way.

After reading this week resources i learned that  everyone in this world  do not have the same personality as i do, everyone do not know how to speak to people when they are in authoritative position,  I learned that there are ways that you can talk to people in a more productive way without down talking at them. I learned about myself is continue to remained humble even if its bother me or hurts me for her to talk that way to me and others but i also learned to try to break the ice on the fire that is so difficult. I think that i handle things properly in the right way. Now, if i just would have gotta so angry like i did then things would have been handle in a negative way, but i am glad that it did not. As a manager i will used all that i have learned from this course is to make the right decisions  of talking and treating employees fairly. I learned and believed that as a manager of being in charge we have to lead in a more positive and respectful way.

References:

Lloyd, S. (2012). Managers must delegate effectively to develop employees: Planning can minimize poor performance. Social for Human Resource Management. Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/organizational-and-employee-development/pages/delegateeffectively.aspx

2nd Colleague to respond to:

During my employment as a daycare assistant teacher, I experienced a difficult time working with and getting along with the lead teacher in my classroom. She never took my advice or feedback. She would use her lunch breaks to sit in other rooms and talk about me and she was always pinning herself against me. This was extremely difficult for me because I was under her authority and because I did not care for her as a person or respect her as a professional I found it difficult to submit to her instruction. One day I overheard her telling the director that she felt like I was not “ready” and “professional” enough to conduct parent-teacher conferences with our classroom. I expected this comment from her what I did not expect was to hear the director entertaining and agreeing with her insults. I fumed the entire day on the situation and came in the next morning blowing up on the lead teacher and the director. At that moment I felt justified but afterward, I felt guilty.

After reviewing this week’s resource I learned that the lead teacher in a way used mental and emotional passive-aggressive actions to undermine me (2013, Scilla Elworthy, REDx Talks). I also learned from this situation that I have poor conflict management skills. According to an article written by Rian Thomas, “Employees’ inability to effectively deal with anger and conflict in the workplace can result in a tremendous loss of productivity. After addressing what I had overheard with my colleague and director, I completely shut down and submitted my resignation a few weeks later.

Looking back I would have handled the situation very differently. For starters, I would have expressed my issues with management to see if there was a way to resolve whatever the underlying issue was between her and I. Because I did not address my issues with the teacher as they were occurring I allowed all of my frustrations to bottle up and eventually explode at the moment I felt I was ultimately disrespected. I could have also requested to be transferred to another classroom. I knew this was an option but at that time I felt because she was the newer teacher that she should be the one moved to another room. Looking back over this situation, I would have had so much peace if I would have just transferred to another classroom. As far as addressing the backlash I overheard, I should have called a professional meeting between my director’s boss for a resolution.

As a manager, I find myself always diffusing conflict. Since I have experienced my own share of conflict in the workplace and know the damage it can do, I immediately address conflict when it arises. According to Rian Thomas, it is important to have a conflict management system in place. I plan to use his concepts in navigating through the inevitable events of conflict by first providing training to my staff so that they are more self -aware of when they are experiencing work-related conflict. I would then make myself aware as a neutral party to help resolve the conflict between all parties and finally develop and provide a process to support my staff with managing workplace conflict (2002)

Reference

Thomas, R. (2002). Conflict management systems: A methodology for addressing the cost of conflict in the workplace [Blog]. Mediate.com. Retrieved from http://www.mediate.com/articles/thomasR.cfm

· TEDx Talks. (2012, April 30). How do I deal with a bully, without becoming a thug? | Scilla Elworthy | TEDxExeter [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgWyolwBGgE