Conflicts in schools, conflict management styles and the role of the school leader

Abstract

Conflict may occur in any organization (and hence school) and, for schools, conflict management style is a joint activity and the degree of its effectiveness determines the type of impact of conflict on school performance. This empirical study investigates the potential sources of conflict in Greek primary schools, determine appropriate approaches for the handling of conflicts and offers recommendations, based on the findings, for a more creative conflict management style in order to enhance school performance. Anonymous questionnaires were distributed to primary school educators in two Greek regions, one of which was the metropolitan area of Athens, resulting in a sample of 414 completed questionnaires. The results showed that school conflicts often arise in the school and that when school conflicts did occur they were mainly attributed to both interpersonal and organizational reasons. Moreover, the results showed that there is a greater likelihood for these conflicts to arise in urban schools than in other regions. This study supports the view that integration, collaboration and coherence are the key factors for cultivating a constructive conflict management strategy and enhancing better school performance.

Leadership and Conflict Management Style Are Associated with the Effectiveness of School Conflict Management in the Region of Epirus, NW Greece

“…Among the frequent sources of conflict were identified: interpersonal conflict; structural organizational weakness; poor organizational communication; limited availability of resources; leadership style and introduction of changes and innovations. These results are in agreement with previously published reports on the contribution of personal and organizational factors for school conflicts in Greece and other countries [24,42,43].…”

“…Leaders may have different leadership styles and different conflict management styles. A review of the relevant literature reveals that there are a few options available for school managers who wish to tackle a school conflict and these can be grouped into five different approaches [21][22][23][24]: Avoidance, Compromising, Collaborating-Integrating, Forcing-Competing, Smoothing-Accommodating.…”

“…Compromising is a conflict managing approach aimed at finding a solution that is mutually acceptable and expedient and partially satisfies both the involved parties [21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28].…”

“…Adopting a Forcing-Competing approach entails pushing one's opinion at the expense of others and maintaining active resistance to the action of the other person. The forcing technique is used in situations whereby one needs to fight for ones' rights/opinion, resisting pressure or aggression [17,[21][22][23][24]31].…”

The Impact of Preservice and New Teachers’ Involvement in Simulation Workshop and Their Perceptions about the Concept of Conflict in Education

“…Conflict management is an important skill and should therefore be imparted to teachers. The effectiveness of educational conflict management by the teacher determines the type of impact on the quality of teacher performance at school (Saiti, 2015). Training teachers in conflict management through simulation workshops exposes them to a variety of methods that help them manage educational conflicts successfully in the school through active experience.…”