Situational

Building on the flexibility and constructiveness promoted at the self and social levels, the situational level offers a set of CIQ competencies focused on conflict adaptivity, or the capacity to employ distinct strategies in different types of conflict situations in a manner that achieves goals and is fitting with the demands of the situation.

Conflict adaptivity has three basic components: 1) the capacity to understand the fundamental dimensions that distinguish between qualitatively different types of conflict situations, 2) skills in shifting and employing different conflict resolution strategies, and 3) the ability to assess fit: knowing which strategies work best in which types of situations. Three models of conflict adaptivity are outlined here for illustration—one for managing interpersonal conflict across power differences, one for mediating disputes between others in more “derailing” types of situations, and one for resolving conflict across major cultural differences.

Interpersonal-Conflict Adaptivity

The first and most basic approach to adaptive CR is derived from the situational model of conflict in social relations (Coleman et al. 2012), which is built around three fundamental aspects of interpersonal relations: relational importance (How important is this conflict/relationship to me?), goal type (Are the other disputants typically with me or against me—or both?), and power differences (Are they more or less powerful than me in this situation?). These basic differences combine to offer a model of seven basic types of interpersonal situations (Coleman and Ferguson 2014). These include one where the conflict is of low importance (independence) and six situations of high importance: com- passionate responsibility (high power, cooperative goals), partnership (equal power, cooperative), cooperative dependence (low power, cooperative), command and control (high power, competitive), enemy territory (equal power, competitive), and unhappy tolerance (low power, competitive). Research has shown that each of these situations tends to elicit from us a particular orientation to conflict (Coleman et al. 2010), which is culturally normative or expected for each situation (Kim et al. 2021). These orientations are, respectively, autonomy (in situations of independence), benevolence (in compassionate responsibility), cooperation (in partnership), support (in cooperative dependence), dominance (in command and control), competition (in enemy territory), and appeasement (in unhappy tolerance).

Adaptive Mediation

Having the capacities to mediate disputes effectively and efficiently, or to help others work things out when they are unable to do so themselves, is a core leadership competency. In fact, managers spend approximately 24% of their time resolving employees’ conflict at work (American Management Association 2021). However, at times the context of mediation (defined as acceptable, third-party conflict facilitation; Coleman et al. 2014) can present a unique set of challenges to navigate. Research has identified the four most challenging conditions or “derail- ers” of mediation as (Coleman et al. 2015):

  1. High intensity conflict: higher levels of destructiveness, emotional- ity, and intransigence;

  2. High degrees of constraints or limitations on the mediation: including legal and time constraints and constituent pressure;

  3. Highly competitive relationships between the disputants; and

  4. The covert nature of the issues and processes, including the degree

    to which hidden processes and agendas are feeding the dispute.

These four qualities of mediations were found to be related to dramatic differences in the strategies employed by expert mediators as well as to mediation outcomes.

However, when any of the four derailers obstruct this objective, mediators are forced to address each of them independently by leveraging alternative strategies, in order to eventually get back to standard mediation.

Accordingly, mediators were found to take on dramatically different roles and respond with different strategies and tactics when facing the five distinct mediation situations, including:

  1. The (Standard) Mediator: backing off, observing, and facilitating in a more relational and nonjudgmental way when relations are more moderate;

  2. The Medic: responding in a stronger, more controlling and demanding manner when encountering high levels of intensity and destructiveness of conflict;

  3. The Fixer: responding with more preparation, efficiency, and transparency and by lowering aspirations when the situation is highly constrained;

  4. The Referee: responding like a hands-on referee or arbiter when the level of competitiveness of relations between the disputants was high, and;

  5. The Counselor: responding in a more private, probing, therapeutic fashion when the issues and processes in the case were found to be covert and inaccessible publicly.

Cross-Cultural Conflict Adaptivity

A major question faced when navigating significant cultural differences in negotiation and dispute resolution, especially when abroad, is “Whose culture should be privileged?” In other words, when they differ substantively, whose mores, norms, practices, and preferred procedures should dictate how to proceed in addressing the dispute—those of the local stakeholders or the outsiders? Prior research offered the distinction between the more common prescriptive approaches (outsider) versus more elicitive (localized) methods to intercultural conflict resolution intervention and training (Lederach 1995). More prescriptive approaches privilege the information and strategies introduced by those external to the host culture, while more elicitive approaches favor local contextual knowledge and expertise. Although Lederach (1995) advocated for more localized approaches as a check on the Western cultural bias often evident in many popular conflict management methods, he also conceded that it is often not feasible or practical.

Situational Conflict IQ Toolkit