Abstract

Organizational conflict manifests in misalignment of individuals and groups, and is often discussed in terms of the effect that leadership and management have on the state of affairs. It is built-in for any organization, yet its root causes are not fully understood. It is not uncommon to characterize leadership/management conflicts in terms of the style or personality type of the individuals involved; however, conflicting leadership and management objectives that are not style or personality dependent may also be a significant factor. If conflict is actually disagreement about the role-driven management objectives and leadership objectives at hand, rather than being based on style and personality, knowing how objectives-driven conflict manifests would be valuable to an organization for identifying the root cause of the conflict. The researcher posited that a portion of organizational conflicts may be predestined by way of conflicting objectives that are intrinsic to management and leadership, and defined a perspective that utilized the historical bases for leadership and management to illuminate the possibilities. A Delphi study was conducted, which iteratively utilized a diverse group of industry experts to explore the roles, objectives, and actions of leaders and managers from a practitioner perspective. Although the study found that organizations can be in conflict due to conflicting management objectives and leadership objectives, the interchange of ideas during the study led to the conclusion that the nature of the objectives is largely conditional or subjective rather than predestined, and therefore the conflicts are also conditional or subjective.

Library of Congress Subject Headings

Dissertations (EdD) -- Organizational leadership; Organizational effectiveness; Conflict management; Organizational behavior; Leadership; Management

Date of Award

2013

School Affiliation

Graduate School of Education and Psychology

Department/Program

Education

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctorate

Faculty Advisor

Mallette, Leo

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