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In every group there is conflict. As time passes, personalities, ideas and perspectives will clash with each other. In fact, managers and team members can take comfort in knowing that conflict is not only likely in teams, but that such conflict may even enhance performance.142 In fact, Jehn,

Northcraft, and Neale (1999),143 as well as Pelled, Eisenhardt, and Xin (1999)144 have identified intra- team conflict as an important mediator of diversity and team performance.

There is a distinction that can be made between cognitive conflict, which arises from differences in perspectives, and is task oriented, and affective conflict, which arises from disagreement because of personal disaffection.145 While there are different terminologies that can be used, it is important to understand that one arises from the task itself, while the other is more personal. Another distinction is that of Marks, Mathieu, and Zaccaro (2001). They argue that there is a difference between team processes and emergent states. Team processes are the means whereby team members utilize team resources whereas emergent states are the cognitive, motivational, and affective states of the team.146 They see the collective team identification as an emergent state and the elaboration of tasks as a team process. It is another way of making a distinction between the task itself, and the

emotional, personal, subjective contexts that influence the task.

137 _{Pelled, Eisenhardt, and Xin, 1999, pp. 22} 138

Van Knippenberg, De Dreu, and Homan, 2004, pp. 1013

139 _{Pelled, Eisenhardt, and Xin, 1999, pp. 6} 140 _{Pelled, Eisenhardt, and Xin, 1999, pp. 2} 141

Kearney and Gebert, 2009, pp. 87

142 _{Pelled, Eisenhardt, and Xin, 1999, pp. 24} 143 _{Jehn, Northcraft, and Neale, 1999, pp. 747} 144

Pelled, Eisenhardt, and Xin, 1999, pp. 2

145 _{Amason and Sapienza, 1997, pp. 495} 146 _{Marks, Mathieu, and Zaccaro, 2001, pp. 357}

30 While task conflicts may have potentially positive side effects, all types of conflict tend to have a personal, affective aspect too. It is therefore important that even during task, or beneficial types of, conflict, there is a possibility that these can spiral out of hand into more destructive interpersonal attacks and emotional outbursts. Care must therefore be given in making sure that this does not happen.147 In fact, a leader should try and keep affective, or personal conflict to a minimum. Intra- team power conflicts between individuals or coalitions may impair team performance as anxiety will impair cognitive processing of complex information,148 making individuals less receptive to different ideas and perspectives, all while taking energy devoted to task work away and directing it towards resolving these conflicts.149 Leaders should make sure that such power conflicts do not occur. Research has shown that cliques and coalitions have been responsible for costly delays, and problems with integration, hindering team performance.150 Emotional conflict, leading to jealous rivalry, stemming from similarity with respect to career-related attributes is another negative effect a leader should be wary of.151 This can after all lead to affective, personal conflict and hinder team performance.

The challenge for a leader with regards to managing conflict is therefore to have a certain,

unspecified amount of cognitive, task conflict while at the same time minimizing affective, personal conflict. This can be done by making sure that the team has mutual goals. Norms of mutuality are associated with greater feelings of trust, attachment, and lower feelings of disharmony and affective conflict.152 In teams with high levels of mutuality, greater openness led to less affective conflict, even when a larger team size was associated with greater affective conflict.153

It is also very important for a leader to create an environment where team members can be critical of each other, in a constructive way. If a team is more concerned with reaching consensus than it is with achieving a good result, then new information will be disregarded in order to reach consensus, which is of course detrimental to team performance. In fact, even when new information was printed in bold, only critical groups used that new information, whereas consensus groups persisted in their preferences.154

The creating of such a critical group or team can seem a daunting task for a leader. Research has however shown that norms, such as being critical, were enforced if they facilitated team survival. Conversely, norms that did not contribute to team survival were weakened. Therefore, if team members regard lock-step consensus as detrimental to team survival, they will weaken its

importance.155 Such norms that reflect the needs of a team can develop through explicit statements of supervisors or leaders, critical events in the history of the team, and carry-over behavior from past situations.156 In fact, critical group norms that developed during a prior task can improve the quality

147 _{Kurtzberg and Amabile, 2001, pp. 292} 148

Amason and Sapienza, 1997, pp. 513

149 _{Hirst and Mann, 2004, pp. 150}

150 _{Donnellon, 1986; in Hirst and Mann, 2004, pp. 150} 151

Pelled, Eisenhardt, and Xin, 1999, pp. 3

152 _{Amason and Sapienza, 1997, pp. 502} 153 _{Amason and Sapienza, 1997, pp. 495} 154

Postmes, Spears, and Cihangir, 2001, pp. 927

155 _{Feldman, 1984, pp. 48} 156 _{Feldman, 1984, pp. 52}

31 of decisions, whereas consensus norms will not.157 A good way for teams to develop critical norms that foster task conflict in order to improve team performance, is by making sure that the team collectively reflects upon its tasks such as its objectives, strategies, or processes and adapts them to the current or anticipated circumstances.158