Recently I was involved in a conflict in which the other
party was defensive. In my opinion, the other party was justifiably defensive –
to an extent – but seemed to be overly so. This defensiveness manifested itself
as anger; but as I listened to her voice her outrage, I realized that there was
much more going on besides anger and defensiveness. She was fearful that the
situation at hand would morph into all sorts of bad things for her family. She
was overwhelmed and depressed about several things that had transpired over the
past several months, including the loss of a job that she had held most of her
adult life. As an empathetic and people-oriented listener, I did not take her
anger personally; I really wanted to reassure her and be a comfort. I understood
that these other feelings were feeding into her anger, and that her anger would
dissipate in proportion to the dissipation of those other feelings.
Unfortunately, this interaction did
not go as well as I had hoped. Even though I feel as though I took the steps
indicated in the text for communicating in a defensive climate, the
conversation ended without anything being resolved and it has left a strain on
our relationship.
Anita,
ReplyDeleteGreat post! At work I have had similar situations and had others get involved when I really didn’t want them to. In the work setting, i tend to always play the listener and keep my emotions out of the situation. At work, others tend to be more aggressive and show all emotion. I'm currently in a higher education setting, so this upsets the students because they often feel like they aren’t being heard by this person. It's always a tough situation for me, because I don't want to get in the middle of someone else’s job. Thanks for sharing!
Hi Anita,
ReplyDeleteI am sorry for the conflict that you engaged and also I guess it was not a pleased experience when ending up without fixing the problem. You did a right job when you were involved in the conflict, you listened and did not to take the person's anger personally, which means you tried to stay calm and be sensible. I learned from my life experience that when a person is lost in his/her strong emotions, the response I could give is to step back and give a bit space for the two sides. Not until the person really calm down, any conversation with kindly purposes are not easy to work. Thank's for sharing and hope you have a nice day!
Anita,
ReplyDeleteMy apologizes for this strategy not working in your favor. I do agree with the grounds of the communication climate. It all depends on the surrounding how we feel about our communication in different relationships. Also, these strategies may work for some and not for others. Although I consider myself to avoid conflicts by trying to compromise sometimes, it just may not work. My suggestion, and even to myself as well, would be to try another conflict strategy in trying to avoid the conflict. Great post, it gave us a dose of reality that every theory or application may not result into what we expect. Thank you for this post.