Social and Emotional Competence in the Work Place Report 2022

Running head: CONFLICT MANAGEMENT
SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL COMPETENCE IN THE WORKPLACE
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL COMPETENCE IN THE WORKPLACE
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Introduction
Ayoko (2016) states that social and emotional well-being of the employees plays a key
role in the development and growth of the organisation. Social and emotional competence is
defined as set of skills applied constantly in dealing with oneself and others and is observed as
one of the most important feature to have within a work environment. The organisation is
comprised of diverse demographic and people from different management hierarchy work
together for their personal and the growth of the company (Ayoko, 2016). It is natural for
conflicts to arise in the workplace and if not resolved can hamper the performance of the
employee and lead to emotional and psychological problems for the individual. Keevers et al
(2011) define the term conflict as something that describes a way of thinking that is in
disagreement or incompatibility between groups of people or individuals in terms of behaviour,
roles, attitude and beliefs.
Study conducted showed that managers spend 25% of their time in resolving or dealing
with issues related with conflict (Ayoko, 2016). Cao and Chen (2020) are of the opinion that
since conflicts are always associated with negative emotions, stressful therefore, more
workplaces give attention to resolving such conflicts and create strategies to minimise the
intensity and incidence of the conflict. The conflict is complex and often time very ambiguous in
nature, however it does cause harm to the social and the emotional state of an individual it can
start as something minor such as gossip and then slowly escalate to something more insidious
(Ayoko, 2016). The following is a reflective writing which analyses a conflict scenario and aims
to form effective conflict management to resolve the issue.

SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL COMPETENCE IN THE WORKPLACE
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Description of the scenario
The incident that I have chosen to reflect upon happened to me when I was working at
this firm with my manager Ted (name changed) and faced discrimination and bullying. It should
be mentioned that it was my first job so I was looking forward to the learning experience. During
my work there I noticed that Ted would not interact with me much and when he did he would
talk in a very condescending manner. He would state that I was not performing as per his
expectation, however upon asking for guidance and feedback he would never state the exact
nature of the problem nor provide any constructive feedback to improve my performance. The
lack of communication and constant bullying was off putting to me as well as other members of
the team. Additionally, he would make me work very long hours so that I would learn and asked
me to change my accent to ensure it suited the work culture.
Initially I would be irritated with his remarks, such as “Are you sure you turned in your
report?”. He would also not communicate regarding any changes that the client needed and keep
making me to do the task without briefing me. I was very enthusiastic about my job when I first
got it. Slowly over time, I felt very demotivated and less enthusiastic about the job. Whenever I
had any good idea he would refuse to take me seriously and even mentioned that I was not
capable of having such ideas. Initially I felt very irritated and the irritation slowly turned into
anger. I would always complain about my boss Ted at home, with friends and it started affecting
my personality and mental health. I even considered quitting the job several times. Studies
suggests that conflict begins very covertly with certain little things such as gossip, non-
cooperation, rumour, retaliation and others. The same happened in this case, however, I want to
resolve this conflict as this is affecting me very negatively (Howard et al, 2019).

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Evaluation and Assessment of the situation
While evaluating the situation I have realised that while the job helped me learn a lot
from professional aspect that was the positive aspect of the situation. I also made friends with
other team members. Upon assessing the issues I have realised that the manager lacked social
and emotional competence (Sathya et al, 2018). His own ethno centric views and gender
discrimination was shown in his way of handling his team members. Even though he handled his
work well and performed well yet it failed to promote peaceful coexistence among the member
of the group. Ayoko (2016) suggest that aggression can come from various situation and is very
strong emotional outcome of a conflict. It is also very negative for a workplace. A report of Tesla
points that gender discrimination is one the most common workplace conflicts and mostly
women are subjected to it and it is the leading cause for termination (Levin 2020). Saxena et al
(2019) also state that gender bias is the reason for most common conflicts and questions the
credibility of the leadership considerably. For example in the case of AJ Vandermeyden a female
engineer at Tesla a luxury brand failed to address the sexual harassment complaint and gender
bias that included less pay than her male co-workers (Levin, 2020). When conflicts are
unaddressed, it results in escalation of the problem and may result in severe emotional and social
conflict. Jacobsson and Wilmar (2019) states that disruption in the team climate is one of the key
features that influences the performance of the team, it is also shared attitudes, emotions and
expectation that is shared by the members of the team. When the team climate is not suitable for
the employees it leads to increased burnouts, emotional distress and decrease in staff retention
(Jacobsson et al, 2019).
On evaluation, I have come to realise that Ted’s approach towards the team climate was
not appropriate and caused stress and burnout among the members of the team. They did not feel