Do you want to learn how to deal with confrontation?
Confrontation is an element of conflict.
It involves two or more people of opposing sides or perspectives engaging one another in a discussion that can resolve a pending problem.
The discussion may also lead to an argument which may lead to a dispute.
The dispute is usually hostile and argumentative in nature.
Confrontation not handled properly, especially in workplaces, could lead to misunderstanding among co-workers.
Thereby leading to negativity in the workplace.
For friends and other forms of informal relationships, it can destroy such relationships when not dealt with correctly.
Overall, knowing how to deal with confrontation will help you better handle conflict in your professional and personal life.
Therefore, discover how to better deal with confrontation.
Tips on How to Deal With Confrontation
Confrontation does not just come to be; something prompts it.
It is majorly caused by unpleasant things, behavior, actions, or/and events.
However, several causes of confrontation may be distress, failed expectations, and lack of fulfillment.
These causes could be.
- Biological cause (e.g., discomfort, pain)
- Social cause (e.g., lack of understanding towards others)
- Environmental cause (e.g., too hot or too cold weather)
- Psychological cause (e.g., depression, anxiety)
Also, confrontation can be both ways.
You could need to confront someone who has mistreated you, or you could be the other person who has hurt someone and is being confronted.
Whatever the case may be, there are ways to handle confrontation better.
Overall, confrontation, when properly handled, can bring about a positive turnaround in relationships and workplace productivity.
Hence, here are some tips on how to deal with confrontation.
Deal With Confrontation By Being Prepared
When you need to confront an individual about anything, you have to prepare for it.
You do this by examining your emotions so that it doesn’t worsen the situation.
After that, you will plan what you will say to the individual.
Also, you may need to take some time to think of the purpose of the confrontation.
It will help you choose words that do not induce anger in expressing your thought.
When you put these in place, it will give you better chances of dealing with confrontation properly.
Keep An Open Mind To Deal With Confrontation
Most times, the whole essence of confrontation is to throw one’s faults to one’s face and correct them.
It can be difficult to get an adult to accept that they are wrong about something.
Therefore to deal with confrontation properly, when talking to people about upsetting things, treat them with respect and dignity.
Also, do not be judgemental about the discussion.
It will make it easy for them to accept their offense instead of seeing it as being judged.
Another thing to bear in mind is to show compassion and empathy when confronting people.
It allows them to accept the correction and change for the better easily.
To Deal With Confrontation, Remain Calm and Speak Slowly
After taking some precautionary measures to prevent the outburst of confrontation, you should remain calm when it comes.
When you begin to talk, speak slowly so that your opponent doesn’t misinterpret it as anger.
Also, try to maintain neutral body language.
It will help to prevent the confrontation from escalating.
More so, you may find a quiet and secluded place to have your discussion.
It will prevent your other persons from interfering and escalating the situation.
Likewise, the other person may not be willing to accept their mistakes in the presence of others.
However, when it seems an outburst is inevitable, try to find common ground between you and the other person.
Resolving the conflict amicably on common grounds helps you handle the confrontation properly without escalating into something else.
Do A Risk Assessment of the Environment
When confrontation is not properly handled, it can escalate to violence and death.
Therefore when you have an open confrontation, you have to access the environment to eliminate the risks that can escalate the confrontation.
To deal with confrontation effectively, do a quick survey in the environment to get rid of any object that could lead to people getting hurt.
These objects could be any form of object that can easily be used as a weapon.
Also, you can tell the individual involved in the confrontation to go to another room until the emotions are slightly down if such individual is prone to violence.
This helps to prevent escalation and destruction of valuable properties in the conflict environment.
Don’t Confront With A “win” Mindset; It Makes It Difficult To Resolve Issues
Conflicts arise because there is displeasure about something.
To deal with this displeasure, there is confrontation.
The essence of talking about it is to resolve the issue.
Hence, to deal with confrontation, do not confront a person with the sole aim of proving a point or winning.
To do this, you can talk more about how the other person’s behavior affects you indirectly.
You can also deliver what you have to say in the form of suggestions to the other person and ask for their opinion.
It puts them in a position to accept their fault easily and leads to the issue being resolved amicably.
Listen To What The Other Person Has to Say
Confrontation becomes elongated and stretched over time.
It is usually because most persons in confrontation always have their already-made answers before the other person gets a chance to talk.
It makes it difficult to resolve the issue because they do not give the other person the opportunity to say their mind.
To avoid this, do not mentally prepare your answer when the other person is talking.
It prevents you from listening to and understanding them.
When people piss people off, they do it unintentionally without knowing that they are hurting people.
Therefore, to better deal with confrontation, always give people the opportunity to talk when confronted.
While they talk, give them your undivided attention and understand them before you draw your conclusions.
Do Not Wait For a Perfect Time To Resolve An Issue
One thing that leads to prolonged issues is waiting for the perfect time to confront someone.
There is no such thing as a good time; rather, there is a thing like when the steam has cooled off a little bit.
What you mistook for good time could perhaps be when the individual is happy.
To deal with confrontation, do not wait for when the issue dies down entirely.
It feels like resurrecting it or creating a new one. This will prolong the conflict unnecessarily.
The best time to resolve a conflict through confrontation is almost immediately.
However, this shouldn’t be in the heat of your emotions.
Give yourself some time to cool off afterward, address the issue immediately.
When you tackle the issue immediately, it prevents it from being prolonged and incurring more issues.
Address One Issues One At a Time
Issues multiply when they are not attended to immediately.
Also, confrontation becomes complex when it has more than one issue to deal with.
It makes it difficult to resolve the problem.
However, when you want to confront someone about an issue, make sure you address a problem at a time.
Do not bring more than one issue to the table and feel like they can all be attended to at once since there is a confrontation.
It will make a simple matter escalate to a big problem because there will be confusion and pointing of so many accusing fingers.
When that happens, no issue is resolved, and the other persons may begin to feel attacked instead of feeling corrected.
Avoid Being A Pushover
There are different kinds of people; the dictator, the pushovers, and those who know how to stand up for themselves.
When in confrontation, do not be a dictator who forces his opinions on people and makes them feel guilty for something they didn’t do.
Also, do not be a pushover who will not stand up for themselves or avoid speaking up because he is afraid of the dictator.
Being a pushover also means not apologizing for what you are not guilty about.
When you do that, it opens the door of bullying to you instead of confrontation.
Instead, you should stick up for yourself.
It will help you be assertive and kind when there is a need for it.
It also helps you deal with confrontation confidently.
Take Responsibility For Your Actions
Confrontation becomes prolonged and almost impossible to resolve when the parties involved refuse to take responsibility for their actions.
When faced with confrontation, remember that the essence is making a correction, making amends, and making things better.
Also, remember that when you are pissed at someone for what they did, there is a 50% chance that you contributed to it.
Therefore, to deal with confrontation properly, accept your mistakes and make amends for them.
Beyond that, accepting your mistakes makes you self-reflective, vulnerable, and open-minded.
Examine Your Emotions
Emotions, when not better controlled, can make a little issue escalate into a complex conflict.
To prevent this, check your emotions to know whether you are projecting the right things towards the other person before the conversation begins.
When you feel bitter and defensive against the other person, do not start the conversation.
Also, avoid making assumptions about the other individual. It makes it difficult to understand and resolve the issue.
You have to exude friendliness and gentleness; it makes it easier to solve problems.
On the other hand, if you are receiving the confrontation, do your best not to respond in frustration or anger.
You can pause your thoughts and assumptions and listen to the other person.
It will give you time to process what you have heard and helped you in responding in a less frustrated manner.
Overall, these are some ways to handle confrontation.
Benefits of Dealing With Confrontation
Confrontation as a conflict resolution tool has many advantages attached to it when handled well.
Some of these advantages include;
It enhances communication skills
Communication is the only tool for resolving conflicts amicably.
Dealing with confrontation teaches you self-control, patience, and intelligence.
All these features work hand-in-hand with the communication skill to make a good communicator.
Therefore, when you utilize communication to resolve confrontation, it indirectly helps make you a better communicator.
It improves your conflict resolution skill
Confrontation presents the perfect opportunity not only to discover this skill but to harness and perfect it.
By effectively resolving conflict and confrontation, you’re honing your conflict resolution skills.
It gives you control over your emotions
Emotions are part of what makes us humans.
However, when some of them are not well controlled, it could lead to a pause in our progress in life.
One of the benefits of dealing with confrontation is that it puts you in a position to put your emotions in check.
Also, it allows you to make decisions without being sentimental about them.
More so, it teaches you to remain calm in the face of the greatest of insolence.
These things make you emotionally tough and stable.
It opens you up to the different patterns of behavior
People are different, and so are their behavioral patterns.
Dealing with confrontation opens your eyes to these different patterns and their characteristics.
It helps you understand these behavioral patterns and better equip yourself to handle them when confronting them.
It leads to a solution and creates room for innovation
The essence of a confrontation is to make things better than they were.
To do this, you need to come up with ideas on how to tackle the problem.
In tackling the issue, you need to develop good ideas on how to deal with the problem.
You have to go through the different process to arrive at a solution
Arriving at a solution could mean creating an entirely new idea that can help make things better than they were.
That way dealing with confrontation would help in birthing an innovation.
Final Thoughts On How To Deal With Confrontation
Confrontation is one of the ways of solving conflicts.
There is bound to be confrontation because we are different individuals with our differences.
Also, avoiding talking about the issue is not a solution to the problem but rather an amplifier.
The goal of any confrontation is to solve an issue and improve things.
To do this, you have to learn how to deal with confrontation in the right way.
In solving confrontational issues, communication can be used to prevent or reduce the impact.
You can achieve this when you keep an open mind when confronting someone or vice versa.
It takes away judgment and assumptions.
Also, on any side of the confrontation, embrace calmness and talking slowly over shouting and anger.
It helps you to think of what has been said to you and gives you time to reflect on them.
When you reflect on them, it is easy for you to make amends when you are wrong.
Thereby making it easy to resolve the issue.
More so, when it comes to a point when it is as if the issue will escalate into something bigger, find common ground on which the two parties can agree upon.
Always accept that you are at fault when you are wrong; it creates room for amendment.
However, do not apologize for what you did not do, as it will make the other person feel empowered and give them the courage to always level up accusations against you and expect you to be cool with it.
In all, with these simple but effective techniques, you can better handle confrontation and resolve conflict amicably, either in your personal or professional relationships.
