Reconciling differences: Conflict management strategies of catholic college and university presidents

Abstract

Catholic college and university presidents leadat the confluence of academic authenticity andreligious faith. They attempt to frame anddefine changing realities in institutions thathave become increasingly secular, and subjectedto many of the same problems common to highereducation in the public sector. Externalpressures, including recent efforts tostrengthen the Catholic identities of theseinstitutions, have added a measure ofcomplexity to leadership roles and challengedthe conflict management skills of institutionalexecutives. The purpose of this study was todevelop a profile of conflict managementbehaviors of US Catholic college and universitypresidents. The profile revealed four factorsthat were common to managing conflict with bothfaculty and trustees: avoidance, smoothing overdifferences, compromise, and collaboration. Abureaucratic forcing factor was linked tofaculty conflict, and a defensive assertivenessfactor emerged for conflict with trustees. Presidents seldom employed a bureaucraticforcing strategy with faculty, but defensiveassertiveness was the second most frequentlyadopted strategy in conflict with trustees. Collaboration was the most frequently usedstrategy for dealing with both faculty andtrustee conflict. Some differences in conflictmanagement approaches were noted in terms ofgender, lay-clergy status, years of experience,and institutional size.