Leadership and Conflict Negotiation - Essay Example

Transformational leadership involves an individual causing a change in followers, and on the other hand, a transactional leader entails transactions between the leader and the followers. Activities such as punishment and rewarding of junior employees mark the personality trait of a transactional leader, whereas the transformational leader is very innovative. The assessment results on the level of building and leading a team can predict the strength of a transformative or transactional leadership approach. The score from the test is 88 out of a maximum score of 100, implying the second quartile. For a percentage that is 95 and above, the assessment test could have predicted a transformational leader, but from the test results, the prediction shows an obvious inclination towards transactional leadership.

Despite the different perceptions of leadership, certain theorists argue that leadership is inherent in people. To understand leadership, the following five bases of power become key; legitimacy, reward, expert, referent, and coercive (Schermerhorn et al, 6). A personal analysis confirms the fourth, and this means that I do attract and worth and acknowledge the respect of other people. A score of 23 out of a maximum score of 100 shows a poor conflict-handling style. This implies that what of interest is winning the conflict rather than negotiation and compromise. Additionally, accommodation would be the best way of handling conflicting situations.

Contrary to the test assessment results I am an accommodating person and probably the results predicted inaccurate results on personal conflict-handling situations. In professional circumstances just as in personal conflict situations, I avoid confrontations and instead work toward a compromise. The results of the face-to-face communication style assessment tests show conflicting results on the eight key items. The dominant test results were 1.16, others were: contentious 1.42, dramatic 0.8, animated 1.25, impression leaving 1.8, relaxed 1.4, attentive 1, open 1.25, and finally friendly 1.5.
Leaders react differently to disputes; some people can be assertive, persuasive, aggressive, cooperative, and submissive, or a mixture of any of these, or even all of them. Negotiation styles cannot be preferred; rather they are inborn such that when confronted with a typical situation demanding a style, then the reaction would just follow. However, for a dispute that has always existed and when one’s negotiation skills are needed then a careful self-assessment might guide one in armoring the most preferred style. The results from the assessment show a conflict of information ad cannot be relied upon to provide conclusive prediction on my preferred negotiating style. Read More