Career Services: Workshop Influencing & Conflict Styles - 2024 I

Don’t you mind being more forceful with someone or do you prefer to be more subtle and do you perhaps avoid possible frictions. During your PhD-project you will find out that disagreements about divergent ideas and interests are inevitable, normal and even healthy. To strengthen your interpersonal communication it is valuable to know what kind of influencing and conflict styles you can adopt.

We begin this workshop with exploring the various options for influencing one another. You will discover your preferred influencing style(s) and you will learn more about useful phrasings. Hence we take a look at the Thomas Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument to examine 5 different conflict styles. You will fill in a self-assessment questionnaire to identify your own preferences. We discuss the differences between these styles and zoom in on the importance of style flexibility. What style is most effective in a particular situation? In the last part of the workshop you analyze a conflict situation that you experienced to understand what you could do differently a next time.   

After this workshop you are more aware of the various influencing and conflict styles. You know which style(s) suits you best and how to adapt to the circumstances when necessary.

Who is it for

PhD’s of all graduate schools, regardless of your type of contract or the year of your PhD-project; Postdocs and temporary teachers from all faculties, regardless of your type of contract (pilot).

Trainers
Rutger-Jan Scholtens

Free entrance
Certificate of proof of attendance available

Our no-show policy
We are happy to offer workshops for free to all Utrecht University students. However: free of charge does not mean free of responsibility. Our activities tend to be fully booked well in advance. For every late cancellation or no-show we have had to disappoint students who would have liked to attend. This is how we work: 

• Once you have signed up for a workshop, we expect you to attend;
• If you need to cancel your registration, do so at the earliest possible moment, at least 24 hours before the workshop;
• Not showing up without notice will mean you cannot participate in any Career Services activity for 8 weeks. Two no-shows mean you cannot participate for the remainder of the academic year.

Questions?
Please send an email to careerservices@uu.nl.