Page 11 - Leadership Basics 9
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Improving Your Negotiation Skills
In order to become better at negotiation the beginning leader needs to be aware that there are two
types of negotiation.
The first is called Positional Negotiation. It is the most well known type of negotiation and is often
called Bargaining. It is the sort of negotiation that takes place in a street market stall where you might
‘bargain’ for a better price. The Seller wants to get the most money he/she can, while you want to get
the item as cheaply as you can, so you offer prices backwards and forwards, and give reasons for why
you should get it cheaper than is being asked. Many leaders are quite good at bargaining.
The second type of negotiation is called Interest Based Negotiation. This is less well known, but is very
important in schools where money and price are not issues, but interests are very important. In
Interest Based Negotiation the Parties educate each other about their needs and concerns, then jointly
problem solve how to meet these needs. The key to being good at negotiation in schools is to master
the skill of interest based negotiation.
As Bargaining (who known as positional negotiation) is the better known form of negotiation, we will
start by looking briefly at what is involved in this form of negotiation.
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