Conflict Resolution Strategies

Professionally, I am having some difficulty at work with a supervisor. To me it seems very childish because we are both professionals and we should be making more of an effort to conduct ourselves in a professional manner as heads of our child care facility. I find at times, I am being degraded by actions rather than words because I am given responsibilities that I feel should be completed by the supervisor. I have always had a feeling that I am not valued at all times and that I can be taken advantage of due to my ability to always want to please others. To me we always bump heads because she is aiming to show me up because I have worked with this staff for over ten years and she is new. I do not like that the staff knows when we are arguing because it is simply embarrassing and I wonder if the staff can see our conflicts, what about the parents and the children. This conflict honestly prohibits me from function properly sometimes because it is always on my mind during the day.

After learning about conflict resolution this week, I have come to realize that I need to step back a little and cool my head. When I am anger and I believe that I am right and I cannot see any other point of view. Reading about compassion and non-violent approaches to problem solving, I realized I can neutralize my conflict if I could implemented a few strategies:

1. Listen before commenting.
2. Learn to teach her with the same respect that I would want.
3. Control my anger in order to promote peaceful interaction.
4.  Learn to let things go and look towards the positive aspects.
5.  I also believe we should focus on the points where we are the strongest and most productive.
6.  Learn how to constructively critique the topics that are creating the problems instead of adding to it.

I also feel being respectful, reciprocal and responsive can help to resolve this conflict because it will allow me the opportunity to look beyond my feelings and consider the other side of the story. We have never sat down and discussed the beginning of this situation and I think we are both at fault. We are not being honest with each other; instead we are building more and more frustration on our lack of communication that already exists.  Many people have told me, that we need to look outside the box because we are limiting our disagreement based on our own perceptions of what we feel are right and wrong.

In confidence, I asked a fellow co-worker what she thought of the situation between me and my supervisor. She actually told me that we have a lot in common concerning work ethics and production. We shared the same strong skills and she does not understand why we are in conflict because we make a great team. She said it seems that we have strong feelings and maybe we both want the same power and she did tell me that my supervisor seems to be feel threaten by my relationship with the other colleagues.  My colleague told me I should try to talk about the situation as much as I can in order to find out all the facts. But she also recommended that I try to listen to what the other party has to say to make sure you know what you are arguing about. After hearing this information, I feel I need to take steps to resolve this conflict in order to promote peace and unity for us and the rest of the colleagues. We should set the correct examples for our workers in order to maintain a professional working atmosphere.