Different people have different expectations and styles of working. Sometimes that can lead to conflict.
This article will help you recognise causes of conflict and proposes strategies to resolve it.
Everyone will experience challenging personal situations and potentially conflict at some point during their work life. These can be stressful and cause high levels of anxiety, especially for autistic students. This section is designed to offer advice that might help to deal with these incidents in a way that helps to diffuse or manage them most effectively.
Based on autistic students’ experiences of university, the sorts of things that can generate conflict include
A lack of awareness and understanding about autism
Often the clues that there is an issue between friends or housemates can be very subtle and rely heavily on decoding body language or passive aggressive actions. Examples of these might include
This can be especially challenging for some autistic students who might struggle to identify or decode these messages.
You might find that you are caught in the middle of a conflict situation between two friends or housemates, or even that the tension is directed towards you. Therefore, it can be useful to know how to identify conflict early and to deal with it effectively.
The University of California, San Diego, provides a very helpful guide on how to manage conflict in the workplace. You can find it following this link.
Alternatively you may want to use the NHS tool on how to manage conflict.
This section was adapted from an article written by Jonathan Vincent, Senior Lecturer at York St. John University for the the Autism&Uni project. The original Autism&Uni project was funded with support from the European Commission with partners in the UK, Finland, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain. For more information about this project please visit: http://www.autism-uni.org