Your ability to resolve conflicts is an important skill in your personal and professional lives. Some organizations encourage and teach employees to confront others, through a culture of candor.

The manner in which conflict is expressed influences reactions and how the conflict process unfolds successfully or not. Therefore, you can develop your ability to assertively confront (or be confronted by) people in a manner that resolves the conflict without damaging interpersonal relationships. We examine the roles of initiator, responder, and mediator in conflict resolution.

An initiator is a person who confronts another person (or other people) about a conflict. Your attitude will have a major effect on the outcome of the confrontation. If you go into a confrontation expecting to argue and fight, you probably will. To resolve conflicts, you should develop a plan of action.

Part of the reason we are not successful at resolving conflict is that we wait too long before confronting the other party, and we are in an emotional state without planning (passive–aggressive behavior). We end up saying things we don’t mean because we haven’t given thought to what it is we want to say and accomplish through confrontation.