My mentor that I have chosen for this assignment is a good
family friend, Taylor Clement. I came into contact with Taylor while searching
for a personal wrestling coach while I was in high school. He just so happened
to be one of my mom’s teaching partners husband’s so the connection was easy.
Since coaching me in high school, Taylor has had a deep impact on my life not
only in athletics but also in all facets of life. He began to tutor me in
different subjects in school, give life advice, and even became a close family
friend. Taylor is now a headmaster at a private Christian elementary school in
St. Louis. We continue to remain in contact and I decided to reach out to him,
as he is already one of my mentors.
As I told
Taylor about the assignment and what the course was truly about he provided our
first topic almost instantly. Taylor is an excellent example of a manager and
he brought to my attention that he deals with internal conflict almost daily. Currently,
he is dealing with a dispute between two co-workers however he also deals with
a lot of outside conflict with parents. I
asked Taylor, “How do you deal with this conflict on a daily basis?” He gave
two different pieces of advice on this question. The first being that you must
realize as a manager you are not always going to please everyone in a school,
business, and any situation where there is a leader. This is the first key
point to realize in dealing with conflict. He added on to this giving the
second piece of advice saying, “the goal of conflict resolution is not to
satisfy both parties. This is nearly impossible and will drive you crazy if you
attempt to do so. A key principle I have with dealing with conflict, as a
manager is to hear both parties. Give each person a chance to speak and be
heard.” Most of the time this will just be over small disputes in the workplace
or with a parent that can be solved by listening. However, he also said that
there are many times a conflict arises that is not this easy to solve. He said
that would come into the next lesson/mentoring conversation. Along with this,
Taylor challenged me to work on this in my own life. He challenged me to not
only use this tactic in conflict but to really focus on listening in every
conversation.
It was interesting to hear a new perspective on conflict resolution. It isn't always about finding the middle of the road between the two sides. If that is that case, then where does the resolution lie? I assume it could be at the extremities. The other solution is outside. Instead of trying to find a compromise, sometimes there is another solution that can be found.
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