Leadership Survey 6

Question 1
How do you react to conflict? Based on the Conflict Style Questionnaire, how would you
describe your conflict style? How has your past history influenced your conflict style?
Your Answer:
I am one who can react to conflict in many ways depending on the situation. I am a people
pleaser which can be a positive and negative attribute. This means in some situations I tend to
accommodate in order to avoid a further conflict or upset feeling of the person I am speaking
with. The situation would have to be something insignificant, otherwise I try to collaborate. I
enjoy brainstorming and learn from talking things out in the open. Not everyone appreciates that
and thinks I am trying to argue further, but I am trying to collaborate and have both sides heard
in order to find a solution. This leads me into the result on the conflict style questionnaire, which
resulted in a very strong collaboration score. I feel my open communication allows for concerns
to be brought forward and we can effectively find a solution while allowing both sides to be
happy. I am a very sensitive person so I dislike the feeling of having someone talk behind my
back, under their breath or feel that a conflict may arise. I am open when it comes to conflict and
addressing problems or feelings someone may show. I can imagine how others feel in situations
as I am empathetic which helps me collaborate to finding a healthy solution and making all
parties heard.
Question 2
Briefly describe a conflict you had with a family member, roommate, or coworker in the
recent past. Identify the positions and interests of both you and the other person in the
conflict. Was the conflict resolved? If so, how? If not, what do you think you could have
done to help resolve the conflict?
(Note: Individuals’ positions may be easier to identify than their interests. Be creative in
detailing your interests and the other person’s.)
Your Answer:
I can remember a conflict when I was manager at a tanning salon. We had high powered tanning
beds, sauna machines and a washer a dryer. One afternoon, I was getting towels out of the dryer
and had a significant shock to my hand that I saw. I touched the outside of the dryer to open it
and actually saw a spark connect, and my hand hurt for the rest of the day. As this was a major
safety issue in my eyes, the owner and her team seemed to be unconcerned. They sent someone
from the maintenance team out to check the dryer and electrical within two days of the event. My
team onsite tried to be careful, and they wanted us to use a rubber glove they brought until the
issue was resolved as they wanted work to continue as normal. I refused to put my team at risk,
so I said they would need to bring laundry from another location if we ran low. Someone finally
came to check the electrical and noted it was only static shock. After checking my own outside
resources, I should not have static shock be that powerful, out of the blue, and hurt my hand for a
long period of time. When speaking with the owner and team again, they became defensive of
the establishment and did not want to take further action. I stood up for my team and the safety
of those in the building and had to let them know if they did not want to have someone check the
building, I would need to take action and call OSHA or the labor board to have someone take
charge. They immediately changed their behavior and said they would get someone on the
situation right away.
My position as a leader of the location is to keep my team safe and give them what they need to
effectively run the location. This was a major safety issue, and I was happy my team did not have
to experience the shock that I did. I wanted to take a stand and let the owner know they have a
responsible manager who would stand up to protect her team. I felt they were in the wrong for
minimizing the situation and behaving like I was in the wrong for speaking up. On the other
hand, the owner and team took the position of defending the company and saying nothing was
wrong. They had attitude with me like I was making something up and it couldn’t be a safety
issue to have that happen. They did not want to hear about it again. Their interests were to
minimize the situation and pretend like nothing happened.
Question 3
Based on your responses to the Ethical Leadership Style Questionnaire, what are your core
values? Do you think other people know your core values? Are you comfortable talking
about these values with others? In your planning for the future (e.g., next five years), how
will your values influence what you do? Discuss.
Your Answer:
Based on the questionnaire, I value doing what is right (duty ethics) which I believe to be true.
When facing ethical dilemmas, it can be challenging to stand up to others when they may want
you to lean away from what is right, but that would eat me up inside. I feel I consider the
consequences of my decisions and it may be challenging to find reasons to move forward with
the right thing when there could be reasons pulling you away, but I have been raised to stand up
for what is right and wrong. I have learned from when I was a child what is the right and wrong
thing to do, and how if you favor the wrong thing, it can come back and bite you. I do feel others
know my core values as I am openly a rule follower. I sometimes struggle with holding my peers
accountable for following the rules as well, but I can only respectfully ask them to and it is up to
them if they want to follow as I am not in a leadership role currently. For the future, my values
will only influence me in a positive way. I feel the role that I wish to have is in HR and
onboarding with the duty to introduce new team members into their role and be the face of the
company. I will be one that begins to go over the values of the company, as well as policies and
procedures. I feel being duty driven will be great for my role as a leader.
Question 4
Have you experienced times when a leader’s ethics have been questionable? How did it
make you feel?
Your Answer:
Fortunately, the time I can remember about a leader’s ethics being questioned, I was not directly
involved. A team I worked with had different levels of leadership in the laboratory. There were
leads, assistant managers, and managers or supervisors. There was a manager who did not fulfil
his expectations and duties around the lab and had other managers with long lists managing
inventory, discipline actions, scheduling etc. The director of the lab decided the manager who
was not doing as much work as the others would get a pay increase. This was unfair to those that
do above and beyond in their positions and pick up the slack from him not fulfilling his duties. It
was brought to HR and they held the raise until the other managers were able to get raises to be
on the same pay scale. This was not a direct impact on me, however I could imagine it would not
be a great feeling to have someone who passes their responsibilities to others get a raise while
you do all of the work.
Question 5
As you look at your results on the Path-Goal Styles Questionnaire, what scores would you
like to change? Which styles would you like to strengthen? How can you make sure you
exhibit the most effective style the next time you are leading a group?
Your Answer:
I would like to focus on participative leadership. I like being in control so it is challenging for me
to let others help in some situations. I resulted a high directive style, with moderate scores in the
other sections ranging from 10-12. I don’t specifically want to strengthen any area at this time as
I showed I was moderately well rounded in each area, however I always believe there is room for
growth. I believe depending on the next situation, I can engage my team I am working with and
create specific, attainable goals with clear direction. I appreciate being well prepared to take on a
task or succeed so I want to do that for others.