Conflict Culture, Accessibility, and Leadership Behavior

Analyzing the experience of employees with disabilities as it relates to the leaders conflict style and the organizational conflict culture.

Within an organization, a supervisor’s actions impact accessibility, perhaps even more than the human resources department (HR). Here’s one of my latest experiences trying to get accommodations which demonstrates this. I first went to HR with my Doctor's letter explaining the accommodations that I needed due to my neuropathic pain and spine disability. They ordered the chair I requested and promised to develop a plan that would include modified tasks in the workplace. But weeks went by and nothing materialized, despite my reminding my supervisor periodically about the importance of the plan. 

Meanwhile, because there was no plan in place, my managers were getting more annoyed about my inability to perform the tasks that they were assigning which was conveyed to me in passive aggressive ways - never directly. Admittedly, they were unaware of my condition even though my supervisor could have informed them of modified tasks without any formal plan from HR. The situation became so uncomfortable at work - both physically and mentally - that I went to my supervisor for help. I specifically asked them to notify the team of my condition and press HR to create my plan. Instead of helping me, they admitted that HR was slow and sent me back to my office. They seemed to recognize that HR had fallen on the job but acted as though it wasn't important and could do nothing. Essentially their way of dealing with it was to avoid the conflict entirely.

Middle Management and Team Dynamics

This incident demonstrates a common problem; the failure of training middle managers to understand the power they have as well as their impact on organizational culture and group dynamics. While HR was responsible for the concrete accommodation plan, the supervisor was responsible for the social dynamic. 

The lack of clarity and understanding about my accommodation needs, created a competitive environment as managers responded indirectly to my inability to do certain tasks. Morton Deutsch researched competitive and collaborative team dynamics. Deutsch's Crude Law illustrates that an employee will likely become more competitive when they feel that they’re in a competitive working environment. This sets up the ideological underpinning of the space, most of these interpersonal exchanges can be very difficult to describe directly. Yet, this tension can build until someone decidedly changes it, the employee leaves, or something more harmful happens (Coleman, 2014). 

Integrative negotiation training could have helped my supervisor because research shows that practicing these techniques is linked to cooperative group dynamics (Coleman and Lin, 2000). This form of training also creates better negotiation outcomes. The win-win approach requires both parties to identify the other’s needs and creatively find solutions for meeting these needs. This form of cooperation impacts the organizational culture because as the leader is more comfortable approaching conflicts with an integrative approach, they create structures within the organization to support this constructive dialogue and that in turn creates a workplace culture of open communication, safety, and collaboration. 

Symbiotic Organizational Processes

This incident also demonstrates the symbiotic relationship between the social dynamic, organizational culture, and structures created for communication which Peter Coleman analyzed through his Critical Postmodern Framework of Organizational Power (CFOP).

As it relates to those with disabilities, the CFOP provides vital structures that bring greater wellness to the set of unique challenges disabled employees face. CFOP states that the messaging of the organizational leaders gets transmitted throughout the organization relationally, structurally, and culturally. When applied to the accommodation process, it highlights the importance of open communication channels, regular formal and informal check-ins. These tactics help because it is helpful to re-visit accommodation needs. New issues arise and previously unknown challenges are surfaced. Given potential social responses or job dependency, the disabled employee may not disclose ongoing challenges. They are likely to struggle each day with it and not mention it. By setting both formal and informal check-ins, you will learn much more about their daily experience, challenges, and ways you can be supportive. 

One key message of the CFOP is that the relational, structural, and cultural modes are interconnected, and my personal work example illustrates this phenomenon. The leader’s conflict avoidant behavior perpetuated a conflict avoidant organizational culture. The reason for this was because the lack of communication structures reinforced avoidant behavior. The relational dynamic remained passive aggressive, exclusionary, and contentious. Had my supervisor received training and been equipped with the appropriate tools to consciously change the conflict culture by creating structures for open dialogue, then this would have also changed the social dynamic to one that was more cooperative and productive.  

In conclusion,

In this instance, I stayed at this job for two years without any accommodation plan or further support from HR. While at work, I felt isolated and hopeless with a great deal of anxiety. My supervisor never took further action and I finally quit the job. Yet the experience didn't end there - the negative memory hindered my application process immediately following the job and continues to impact me today.