Age and Gender Conflicts in the workplace Research Paper

Age and Gender Conflicts in the workplace - Research Paper Example This is so needed as there is room for understanding and empathy for one another and what must not take the rounds of organizations is a lack of civility and complete abhorrence with the standards and practices which are rampant in a workplace domain. Workplace conflicts can be of expounding nature because these bring about bad blood amongst the employees and they start feeling alienated for all the wrong reasons. What the top management does is important because it essentially decides the good and the bad aspects, and then passes on the directions to the human resources management department, which later on carries the same forward. Gender conflicts do arise when men and women have problem in working along with one another. These could mean that either of the two genders have issues in coordinating or getting along with each other. This could essentially hurt the basis of the business and bring problems left, right and center. The role of the leadership is one of an important one because it needs to decide for its own self what course of action to undertake. If the leadership is weak and compromising, then there is a good amount of material available with the research done that the conflicts would increase within the workplace with each passing day. Such discussions center on the dictum that work takes the back seat and foolish rifts crop up every now and then. This is a very discouraging situation at work and should be avoided as much as possible (Schultz 2003). If the leaders do not realize their due role, it would be very easy to deduce that they are not doing their jobs properly. What this also means is the fact that the leadership must pull up its socks so that the sanctity of the organization could be restored, and that there are minimal issues which crop up every now and then. The employees look up to the leaders, which in this case would comprise of the top level management and hence it is the duty of the latter to make sure that

Reflection of the Vision Module Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Reflection of the Vision Module - Essay Example However, I soon realized that creativity is a funny thing. What sounds wildly creative and imaginative to one person sounds like a mess of silliness to another. Our first mistake as a group was not sorting out our differences from the beginning as to the very nature of the project itself. One idea that was pitched was a creative use of technology that involved newspaper headlines that were projected on a screen. This was my idea. Others in the group wanted a more traditional presentation of ideas through a featured lecturer set-up. Another faction of the group wanted to create a fully realized dramatic presentation complete with singing, poetry and props. We spent much energy and time trying to accommodate everyone’s ideas. There was a lot of conflict at this stage of the project, but that is to be expected. I kept thinking after each meeting that we would soon find something to do that everyone would be happy with, but after a while, I gave up hope. One of the biggest problem s was the fact that several group members refused to do anything that was not part of their original idea. Anything dramatic or any sort of performance was out of the question for these group members. We could not resolve this rift in the group, so we did something that in the end would prove to be unwise. We moved on with a hybrid of ideas that excluded these members. Basically, through frustration, the majority of the group sent a â€Å"like it or lump it† message to the minority that objected to the performance. This caused considerable problems. One is the fact that the few members that were marginalized failed to keep commitments and did not contribute much work towards the final product. This is understandable, but it really harmed our final product. We decided to write a dramatic performance that included technology I was in charge of utilizing. Just before the performance, some members wanted to make last minute changes to the script. There was a falling out among mem bers. Two members of the group sabotaged the performance by drawing the curtain and hiding behind it. Needless to say, the message of our presentation was somewhat lost among the chaos. Reflecting on this group learning activity really has been a thought provoking exercise. It has been a great opportunity to try something new, reflect on the possible mistakes and note how they could be avoided in the future. Themes that came up continually when I was thinking about this experience include group dynamics, group decision making, leadership styles and styles of communication. Reading about how groups form and share ideas has really helped me to better understand how this group learning activity could have been improved. Actually, the learning activity was great, it was the final product that needed to be improved. The idea that groups go through phases such as storming, norming and performing is interesting. Understanding that there will be differences of opinions in a group is powerfu l information that I do not think all of the members of our group understood. Looking back on the experience, too many people took criticism and critique personally, causing the group to stall in the storming phase. We never really established the norms of how the group should work. As a result, the person or people with the stormiest personalities got their way while the soft-spoken members were pushed to the side. Better resolution of the first phase of team formation would have led to a better end