Examples of professional conflicts and their resolution. Types of Professional Conflicts

Social studies teach that any social relations include conflict. This is how the world works: what is good for the Russian is death for the German. Due to the discrepancy of expectations, goals and interests, disagreements and conflicts arise. How to get out of such situations with minimal losses? Is conflict always bad? Let's try to figure it out by studying examples of professional conflicts: in social science there is a whole industry on this topic.

How does the conflict begin and how is it characterized?

Science defines conflict as a mismatch of motives, goals, expectations. This contradiction can manifest itself not only outside, but also within the individual. Conflict always implies the presence of two or more different points of view.

Emotionally, the conflict is characterized by stress, tension, unpleasant sensations, even at the level of 5 senses. A protracted conflict, turning into a chronic stage, can cause psychosomatic illnesses on a personal plan or negative group processes in society, such as the breakdown of a team, a decrease in labor productivity, a strike.

Social conflict can also be distinguished: examples of professional conflicts in society are not uncommon. Such are the notorious class conflicts (in Europe) or caste (in India).

Not at all now professional conflicts have arisen: examples from history confirm this. For example, the 19th century was rich in discoveries, and which of the inventors was immediately recognized? There is a conflict with public opinion among all discoverers.

What sciences study conflicts

Conflicts of interest are studied by a wide variety of social and human sciences, depending on the level and causes of the conflict. These industries include:

• sociology;
• conflict management;
• social science;
• social science;
• psychology;
• management;
• political science and others.

Many sciences study conflict from many different angles, but for what?

Do I need to study the conflict?

“He who is warned is armed,” says popular wisdom. That is why knowledge of conflict as a phenomenon can greatly help not only managers, but also any person.

Everyone has experienced intrapersonal conflict at least once; some may recall examples of professional conflicts, for example, the controller more than once had to argue with stowaways, and the financial inspector with defaulters.

Knowing how to get around or mitigate differences, how to get out of a controversial situation, you can save a lot of effort, time and other resources. Meanwhile, science has already systematized conflicts according to various criteria.

Types of conflicts and their classification

By the most common criterion, conflicts can be divided into external and internal: the former are connected with society, the world around them, the latter unfold in the internal arena of the individual.

In the group of social conflicts, working disagreements stand out, among which several more types of contradictions can be identified:

• Labor conflicts. They are connected with the relations of employment in all its manifestations and are resolved mainly by law.
• Organizational conflicts. They are expressed in the discrepancy in the behavior or attitudes of individual employees or groups to the customs and corporate standards adopted by the labor collective.
• Interpersonal conflicts. Regardless of the external form of expression, such disagreements are fundamentally personal motives.
• Professional conflicts. They are an integral part of core activities and, as it were, are embedded in the essence of a particular profession.

Professional conflicts are increasingly common: examples from history can tell us about the famous lawyer Koni, whose work consisted entirely of conflicts.

How do labor and professional conflicts relate?

Labor and professional conflicts should not be confused: the only thing they have in common is that they arise on a business field. A labor conflict implies the existence of an employment contract, in connection with which there are contradictions, for example, the boss decided to change the working mode, and the specialist does not want to switch to a new schedule. Another option is when, under a collective agreement, an employee has the right to financial assistance, but the employer refuses him this payment. In such cases, the employee may apply to the labor dispute committee or to the court, as the dispute is based on a violation of the established norm.

Professional conflicts are not related to a specific place of work or the employer, but are cross-cutting for colleagues of the same specialty. An example is the activity of a teacher, which is full of disagreement with students, their parents, inspectors, and the administration. Situations can be different: the results of the control, examinations, the correctness of the paperwork, the acceptability of the requirements are disputed. If the teacher changes his job, it is unlikely that in this way he will exclude conflict situations from his activity, because they are characteristic of the profession.

Conflicts in professional activity

As a rule, professional conflicts are not the result of malicious actions, but are a natural component of core activities. Such conflicts arise as soon as a person begins to engage in his special activities.

There are well-known conflicting professions, such as a lawyer, supervisor or tax inspector. It is difficult to imagine a lawyer who agrees with everyone, or a controller who smiles sweetly at a passing free rider. In general, few people love financial inspectors; nevertheless, they are obliged to work and provide the required indicators, as is customary in the domestic system.

A professional conflict situation requires special stress tolerance and a specific personality trait. Is it possible for an impressionable and emotional person to choose the profession of a law enforcement officer, for example? Probably, you can always choose, and whether this will be the point is the question.

It is assumed that already at the stage of choosing a profession, applicants understand the essence of their future activities. In fact, it turns out to be far from the case, and young people guess about the existence of conflicts in their chosen work many years later, in practice.

Types of conflict behavior

Social science in the process of research identified several typical strategies for behavior in conflict situations:

• Rivalry. Now one of the most popular ways, unfairly elevated to the rank of socially approved. The attempt to introduce such a system into the school curriculum does not hold water, because in essence this model is based on the forceful satisfaction of one’s own interests to the detriment of others.
• A fixture beautifully veiled under the term "adaptation". One of the most common ways of behavior in large corporations, in conditions of total imposition of corporate culture standards, regardless of the attitudes of an individual employee. It is expressed in disharmonious sacrifices with its own interests for the sake of another.
• Compromise. Acts on the principle of "neither you nor me." Such a strategy cuts the interests of all parties and does not give full satisfaction to any of them.
• Avoidance is a model for the lazy and cautious. With this type of behavior, the subject leaves both the interaction with others and the pursuit of personal goals — a kind of science-like “nonsense”.
• Cooperation. It seems to be the only constructive solution. This is a third option that satisfies the interests of all parties involved. It is this solution that makes conflict a source of development.

Varieties of professional conflicts

In this category, subgroups of emerging contradictions can be distinguished according to various criteria:

• by field of activity: legal, service sector, medicine, public administration and other industries;
• according to the direction of the load: physical (fatigue, irregular day) and moral (making difficult decisions, responsibility for others, compelled violation of other people's limits and others);
• by the nature of the occurrence: natural (when the physician is forced to hurt the patient by making a medical injection) and artificial (associated with the costs of the state system, when the state inspector, unwillingly, is forced to bureaucratically collect unnecessary documents).

Further analysis will help to identify other types of professional conflicts, but their criteria will be different.

Examples of professional conflicts

There are a lot of them in the service sector, for example, when repairing household appliances, in a tailoring workshop, in a hairdressing salon. At first glance, fertile and monetary work, what is not a warm place? This was not the case: working with people always implies a potential conflict arising from customer dissatisfaction with the services provided.

The civil service is also not cloudless, because the special status of a civil servant places a considerable responsibility on him. In addition, not everyone is ready to fulfill the requirements of a particular public institution, and in such a situation, the profile representative of the state is forced to take measures that may conflict with the interests of the participants in the system.

For example, it is difficult to imagine a taxpayer who voluntarily and happily gives taxes to the state. However, the tax authorities are taking all measures to receive such payments, sometimes even forcibly.

A military or law enforcement officer becomes a particularly striking example of a professional conflict: moral and physical, natural and artificial conflicts are intertwined here. What is the use of a weapon alone, not to mention hostilities or the detention of a suspect.

The profession of a judge is just as conflicting, because one of the parties will always be dissatisfied with the decision, considering it illegal. Examples of professional conflicts in Russia are well illustrated by the profession of a statesman: criticism of them is inevitable.

Domestic and professional conflicts: what are the differences?

From the names themselves it follows that such disagreements arise in different areas of social life and for dissimilar reasons. What is the difference between domestic and professional conflicts?

Households are associated with situations of cohabitation, violations of the rules of hostel, good neighborliness, and in the working environment - non-compliance with standards of conduct in the team, creating inconvenience to employees.

If professional conflicts are inherently costs of a certain activity, then domestic conflict is usually provoked or inflamed intentionally.

Domestic conflicts can be avoided with the goodwill of the parties and a tendency to compromise, while it is impossible to exclude professional ones.

Career guidance is one way to get an idea of ​​potential conflict situations.

A similar object has been known to everyone since school, and to this day it has not lost its relevance. Career guidance is not only to determine a person’s propensity for a particular activity, but also to familiarize him with the profile of the chosen profession, its content and content, as well as the risks and benefits.

Career guidance with the help of psychological tools helps to determine whether a particular activity is suitable for the person being tested, because for each profile of work there is a preferred personality type.

Even if a leading orientation of activity has been identified, there can be many professions with different conflicts in its framework, which only a certain personality structure can afford. You can ask the client a question: “Give an example of a professional conflict in the chosen profession,” and it will immediately become clear how fully a person imagines this activity.

Psychological portrait of a professional

When determining the conformity of the chosen profession to the personality type, it is advisable to start with a list of professional conflicts in a particular activity. For example, a conflict with a consumer (for a hairdresser), with a counterparty (for a lawyer), with authorities (for a lawyer), with public institutions (for a religious figure), with pupils (for a teacher).

Based on these data, it is necessary to find out which character traits are desirable for such an activity, and which are not at all acceptable. For example, persistence is important for a lawyer, endurance is important for a teacher, and compliance is important for a hairdresser.

In any profession, high stress tolerance is good, because such a person is able to quickly switch from one mode to another and not perceive the negative at his own expense.

How to reduce stress from professional conflicts

Here, every professional, if desired, will find his own recipe. Of course, there are well-known:

• Experience is the son of difficult mistakes. Over time, psychological protection from stress factors is developed, thereby reducing the level of load.
• Attitude to conflict as an inevitable part of your favorite profession.
• Detachment - a state of consciousness in which professional situations are, as it were, observed from the outside and are not related to the specialist. Simply put, it is not so offensive that it does not concern personally.

Obviously, the conflict is not so bad if you develop the right attitude towards it. It hardly makes sense to synonymize the conflict with the negative, because the potential of tension according to the laws of physics can be used to the benefit of oneself and society.