The Five Conflict Styles, and When Each One Actually Works

Two people on your team can't agree on how to run a job. One digs in and won't budge. The other goes quiet, nods along, and quietly seethes. Neither is handling it well, but here's the thing most managers miss: they've both picked a conflict style. They just picked badly, and probably without realising they had a choice.

That's the useful idea buried inside the most-used conflict framework in the world. How you respond to a disagreement isn't fixed. It's a decision, and different situations call for different responses. Get the match right and a tense moment gets resolved in five minutes. Get it wrong and a small niggle festers into a formal grievance.

The two dials behind every conflict

Back in the 1970s, psychologists Kenneth Thomas and Ralph Kilmann built a model that's still taught everywhere from graduate schools to the shop floor. Their Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument boils your options down to two dials.

The first is assertiveness, or how hard you push for what you want. The second is cooperativeness, or how much you try to satisfy what the other person wants. Turn those two dials up and down and you get five distinct ways of handling conflict. None of them is the "right" one. Each has a moment where it's the smart move, and a moment where it'll blow up in your face.

The five styles, and when each one actually earns its keep

1. Competing (assertive, uncooperative)

This is pushing for your position and not much caring whether the other side is happy about it. It's got a bad reputation, and fair enough, it can steamroll people. But there are moments it's exactly right. When a safety call has to be made now, when you already know you're on the correct side of a legal obligation, or when someone's testing whether you'll actually hold a line, competing is the honest move. The trap is using it as your default. Win every small argument by force and you'll win the war and lose the team.

2. Accommodating (unassertive, cooperative)

The mirror image of competing. You set your own concerns aside and give the other person what they want. Sounds weak, but it's often the generous, sensible choice. When you're wrong, when the issue matters far more to them than to you, or when you're spending goodwill you'll want back later, letting it go is smart. The danger is becoming the manager who always folds. Do that and people stop respecting the times you dig in.

3. Avoiding (unassertive, uncooperative)

Sidestepping the conflict altogether. Every leadership article tells you avoiding is lazy, and mostly it is. But not always. When emotions are running too hot to have a useful conversation, when the issue is genuinely trivial, or when you need time to gather facts before you weigh in, a deliberate "let's park this until tomorrow" is a real strategy. The problem is the accidental version, where you avoid because you're uncomfortable and the thing you're dodging just grows. The Fair Work Ombudsman makes the point plainly: many workplace conflicts start as simple misunderstandings and are far easier to sort out if they're dealt with early. Avoidance and "early" don't usually live in the same house.

4. Compromising (moderate on both)

Everyone gives a bit. You split the difference and both sides walk away half-satisfied. It's quick, it feels fair, and it's brilliant when you're short on time or the stakes are moderate. Two people want the same week off? Compromise. But be careful about reaching for it on the big stuff. A rushed compromise can paper over a problem that needed a proper fix, and leave both people quietly resentful that they gave ground.

5. Collaborating (assertive, cooperative)

The one everyone says they want. You dig into what both sides actually need and hunt for a solution that genuinely works for everyone. When it lands, it's the best outcome on the board. It builds trust and it often surfaces an answer nobody had thought of. The catch? It's slow. It takes real effort and goodwill from both sides. Trying to collaborate over where to put the office kettle is a waste of everyone's afternoon. Save it for the disagreements that matter, where the relationship and the outcome are both worth the time.

Why "just let them sort it out" is a bad plan

Here's the part that should make you sit up. There's a long-running myth that a bit of conflict is healthy for a team, that arguing over the work sharpens everyone up. A large piece of research took that idea apart. In their 2003 meta-analysis, Carsten De Dreu and Laurie Weingart pulled together dozens of studies and found that both kinds of workplace conflict dragged teams down. Relationship conflict (the personal, "I just don't like working with you" kind) hurt performance and satisfaction, no surprise there. But task conflict (arguing about the actual work) came out negative too, which cut against what the textbooks had been claiming for years. And the effect was worse, not better, on complex jobs where you'd think a good argument would help most.

The lesson isn't that conflict is evil and must be stamped out. It's that conflict left to run on its own tends to cost you, so someone has to manage it on purpose. That's your job as the manager. Picking a conflict style deliberately, rather than defaulting to whatever your personality reaches for under pressure, is exactly what "managing it" looks like.

Where the law quietly sits behind all this

Most day-to-day friction never goes near a legal process, and it shouldn't have to. But it's worth knowing the floor you're standing on. Most modern awards and registered agreements contain a dispute resolution procedure, a set of steps for handling a disagreement that can't be sorted informally. If an issue can't be resolved at the workplace, it can be referred to the Fair Work Commission. The Fair Work Ombudsman's guidance on resolving workplace disputes walks through the usual order: talk it through directly first, escalate internally if that fails, then bring in outside help only if you need to.

So the styles above aren't just soft skills. Choosing to collaborate or compromise early is often what keeps a disagreement out of a formal procedure entirely. That's cheaper, faster, and a lot less stressful for everyone.

How to actually choose in the moment

You won't run a personality quiz mid-argument. But you can ask yourself two fast questions before you respond. How much does the outcome matter to me here? And how much does the relationship matter? High on both, slow down and collaborate. High on outcome, low on relationship, and you're sure you're right, compete. Low on outcome, high on relationship, accommodate. Genuinely trivial, avoid it and move on. Somewhere in the middle with the clock ticking, compromise.

The goal isn't to become a different person. It's to notice the dial you always reach for and, now and then, choose a different one on purpose.

This article is general information, not legal advice. Awards, agreements and individual circumstances vary, so check your specific situation against the primary sources linked above or get tailored advice before acting on anything that could affect someone's employment.

If a disagreement has tipped over from "we don't get along" into genuine underperformance, style alone won't fix it. At that point you need a clear, fair, documented process. Our Performance Improvement Plan Template Pack gives you an editable, Fair Work-aligned structure so you can have the hard conversation properly and keep a record while you're at it. No blank page, no guesswork.

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