Organizational Conflict at Your Workplace

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Intrapersonal Conflict

Often, when a person thinks of conflict, the image of two or more people disagreeing about something comes to mind. However, conflict does not just occur between two or more people. There is another form of conflict that is internal or within the self. Have you ever struggled with making a decision or gotten upset with yourself because of how you acted or failed to act, what you did or did not do, or what you said or did not say? This internal emotional disruption is also known as intrapersonal conflict and can have a negative effect on how well a message is communicated or decisions are made (Nisa & Nizami, 2014). In essence, the person is communicating internally with himself/herself but in a manner that is essentially circular and nondecisive.

Intrapersonal conflict may arise from a person being challenged to perform a task or duty beyond the person’s comfort zone and/or knowledge and skills (Thomas, 2011). The person may become anxious and fearful of not being able to complete the task or duty to the point that the work is not completed, and the person never attempts to seek assistance or research to learn how to complete the task or duty. Another example of intrapersonal conflict is when a person is required (interesting enough from interpersonal interactions) to make a choice between two or more things of equal merit or consequence. How to decide which one to choose becomes a conflicting inner turmoil (Anderson & Heyne, 2016).

Often, a person has to seek the assistance of another person or persons to help him or her in seeing the pros and cons to each of the choices as additional perspectives can minimize and even alleviate the intrapersonal conflict and thus allow a decision to be made.

Another intrapersonal example is when a person is forced to make a decision but feels he/she is being pushed or pulled to make the right decision by another person, perhaps the person’s leader or manager. This “right decision” may go against the person’s morals, make him or her feel uncomfortable, and be unethical or illegal (Anderson, 2015).

As you can see, there are many ways in which intrapersonal conflict may be stimulated, and the aforementioned examples are only a small sample. Intrapersonal conflict can hinder the communications process and decision-making processes in an organization as the intrapersonal conflict first builds in the individual person, slowing the person’s communications and decision-making down. If that individual’s intrapersonal conflict is ignored, it may spiral to the point of eruption expressed in behaviors that then disrupt other members and perhaps the entire organization.

References:

Anderson, L. (2015). Understanding hospital-based nurses’ experiences of structurational divergence. The Qualitative Report, 20(3), 172–185.

Anderson, L. S., & Heyne, L. A. (2016). Flourishing through leisure and the upward spiral theory of lifestyle change. Therapeutic Recreation Journal,50(2), 118–137.

Nisa, M., & Nizami, N. (2014). Development and validation of student’s sources of stress scale. Indian Journal of Health and Wellbeing, 5(9), 1036–1039.

Thomas, E. (2011). From qualitative data to instrument development: The women’s breast conflict scale. The Qualitative Report, 16(4), 908–932.