Conflict Family Tree

​Conflict with my siblings was pretty average growing up. There were elements of both verbal and physical aggression, which is obviously a really bad thing. There were also elements of manipulation - when we realized we were in a conflict, we worked on setting up the other sibling to look as bad as possible when it came to the attention of our parents. But! They were also the people with whom I primarily learned on how to work through conflict, so it wasn't all bad. They are also currently the people who understand why my conflict style is the way it is, as they share the same primary family, so working through conflict with them is the easiest out of all the people in my life.

This is everyone's worst influence, right? Even if it's not THE worst influence, it's gotta be pretty far down on the "bad" influences list. I called out RomComs specifically, because one of the worst tropes it tends to use is mind reading. This is where one love interest sees the other doing something that looks harmful, but is completely out of context. Instead of talking with each other about what happened, they both try to read each others minds and assume that the other is thinking one thing when the opposite is true. The other trope I picked up bad habits from media is saying really harmful, shallow things - media teaches us that exploiting a person's weaknesses is the fastest way to get more power in a conflict, and often times that means throwing that weakness in a person's face. This is super damaging to relationships, and is something that I try to avoid, even though it's SO EASY to take advantage of.

"The first time your dad yelled at me, I told him that he was NEVER going to do that again. My parents never yelled in front of me, I never heard them yelling at each other, and we certainly weren't going to yell in front of you guys." I remember my mom telling me this when I was an older teen, and it was a moment of awakening for me - I didn't realize that raising your voice at your significant other was something that happened in real life. I thought it just happened in media, but my mom - and my dad, who indeed never yelled at her again - dropped a bomb on me that day: you can choose how to handle conflict. You can let your emotions be the driving force behind snap judgements and decisions, or you can breathe deep, be calm, and approach the conflict rationally. And by doing so, you can make the home a place where conflict happens, but is a temporary visitor - not a long-term guest or roommate.

I tend to be very accommodating/obliging with my conflict style. I see this as an overall good thing (though who doesn't see their style as a good thing?), but I also acknowledge that it can be lacking when I'm taking on leadership roles. Given that I own my own business and have employees, a lot of them expect me to be very dominant or collaborative. I also look for ways to prevent conflict from happening to begin with, which includes listening carefully to what others have to say and give little gifts of appreciation to the people I regularly see and interact with on a regular basis.

Online Discourse!? Audrey, are you SURE you didn't mean to put this on the other side of the tree?? Yes, and here's why: I'm old enough and have been online long enough that my algorithms know that the online communities I'm looking for tend to be queer, progressive, and understanding places. They are the spheres where conflict is acknowledged, but then analyzed and contributed to through a lens of teaching other people how to listen and be understanding of those who are maybe in positions of low- to no power. The internet is a cesspool of trolls and power struggles, but one of the fascinating things about it is that one can generally find spaces where those with low power in their offline lives instead have high power in these communities, and can exercise that power to gain greater understanding of people who look or live differently than ourselves.

The ONLY reason why my work managers aren't all the way at the bottom of the tree is because I'd like to think I learned from their shortcomings. There are two in particular - the two that I've spent the most time working under - that I'm thinking of, and both were equally harmful in dealing with conflict, though in opposite ways. One was very avoidant in how she handled conflict; she would ask employees who came to her with issues to just try to be nice to each other, and in one egregious move even asked employees to not go to HR with their concerns (this particular instance ended up involving a sexual harrasser, which came back to bite her in the butt when her employees lost a lot of their trust in her.) The other manager was the opposite in that he was very domineering and biased when it came to resolving conflict among employees, often taking the side of the man if it was a conflict between a man and a woman, and was dismissive of the issue overall when it came to conflict between women. Any conflict directly with him would be shut down with an, "I'm the boss" type statement, which would technically end the conflict, but eroded any goodwill his employees may have had with him. I'd like to think that I've been able to learn what NOT to do as a manager, but without any particularly good leadership to draw examples from, I'm also incredibly nervous that I've picked up some bad conflict habits.

Given that I'm a Communications major, I've had a lot of opportunities to study how communication differs between people and cultures. From Intercultural Communication, Interpersonal Communication, and Small Groups Communication, I've been able to add to my interpersonal comms toolbox and work towards resolving conflict in an extremely fast and efficient way (for the most part.) Theories of Communication has also helped in giving me vocabulary that I can pair with phenomena that are happening - which can be frustrating to some of the people that I interact with, but helps me out in knowing how defining something can lead to understanding the situation and work towards a resolution.