Ask five people how they handle a disagreement at work and you will likely get five different instincts.
Some go quiet and let it blow over. Some push hard to get their point across. Neither instinct is wrong, and neither is automatically right.
The Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI), one of the most widely used frameworks in conflict management, argues that everyone has a natural style, and that the skill lies in knowing when to use each of the five distinct approaches deliberately, rather than defaulting to the same one every time.
Conflict itself is a normal, unavoidable part of working with other people, and in Australia, when it goes unaddressed, it's increasingly recognised as a work health and safety issue. Once it shows up, the question isn't whether to deal with it, but how: what are the actual options for responding, and which one fits the moment you're in?"
Key Takeaways
- There are five recognised conflict management styles: competing, collaborating, compromising, avoiding, and accommodating.
- No single style is inherently right or wrong. The Thomas-Kilmann model's central idea is that the best choice depends on the situation.
- Most people have a default style they reach for under pressure, often without realising it.
- Overusing a single style, even a generally positive one like collaborating, creates its own problems.
- Structured training, including the official Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI), helps people identify their default style and build the flexibility to choose deliberately.
Why One Style Doesn't Fit Every Conflict
The TKI model measures conflict behaviour across two dimensions: assertiveness, how strongly someone pursues their own concerns; and cooperativeness, how much they consider the concerns of the other person. Combined, these two dimensions produce five distinct conflict modes.
None of the five is inherently better than the others. Contrary to popular belief, being highly collaborative is not always the right call, and stepping back from an issue is not automatically a weakness. The model's central idea is that skilled conflict management comes from matching the mode to the moment, not from mastering one preferred approach and applying it everywhere.
The Five Conflict Management Styles
Each model is a legitimate tool. What matters is recognising which one you are using, and whether it fits the moment.
Competing
High assertiveness, low cooperation. Pursuing your own position firmly. This is useful when a decision needs to be made quickly, or a genuine principle is at stake.
Competing shows up when someone holds their ground despite pressure to back down, the way a manager might insist a safety procedure be followed exactly, even if it slows the team. The short-term friction is worth it when the stakes genuinely justify it.
Collaborating
High assertiveness, high cooperation. Working with the other person to find a solution that fully satisfies both sets of concerns.
When two department heads sat down and carefully mapped out both teams' needs for a shared budget, rather than rushing to a number, the extra hour up front meant neither side had to quietly live with a decision they didn't trust.
Compromising
Moderate assertiveness and cooperation. Finding a workable middle ground when a fully collaborative solution isn't available or worth the time it would take.
Two colleagues who can't agree on which software to trial don't need a third meeting to sort it out. Running a short test of each and splitting the difference gets everyone moving again.
Avoiding
Low assertiveness, low cooperation. Stepping back from the issue is appropriate when it is trivial, when emotions need time to cool, or when someone else is better placed to handle it.
Sometimes the smartest move is no move at all. Letting a minor scheduling gripe go, rather than raising it in a meeting that's already tense, only becomes a problem if it's the only response used.
Accommodating
Low assertiveness, high cooperation. Prioritising the relationship or the other person's position over your own, useful when the issue matters more to them than it does to you.
Going along with a colleague's preferred approach on a project that matters more to their role than yours, even when you'd have done it differently, spends your effort where it counts and keeps the relationship intact along the way.
Why Knowing the Model Isn't the Same as Using It Well
Most people don't consciously choose a conflict mode. Under pressure, they default to whichever one comes naturally, shaped by habit, personality and past experience, and use it whether or not it fits the situation.
Overusing a single mode causes problems even when that mode is generally a healthy one. Someone who always collaborates can burn hours on decisions that never needed full consensus. Someone who always competes can win the argument and damage the relationship. Someone who always accommodates can build a quiet resentment that eventually surfaces somewhere else entirely.
This is the value of a structured tool like the TKI. It doesn't just describe five options in the abstract; it shows a person which one they default to, often revealing a pattern they hadn't noticed in themselves.
Choosing the Right Style for the Situation
In practice, the right mode depends on a few consistent factors:
- How much the outcome matters, not just how strongly it feels in the moment.
- How much the relationship matters, both right now and beyond this one conversation.
- How much time is genuinely available before a decision is needed.
- How much influence each person holds, since a mode that assumes equal footing can fall flat when the power in the room isn't actually equal.
The skill is not memorising a rule for every scenario. It is building enough self-awareness and flexibility to read a situation accurately and choose a mode deliberately, rather than defaulting to whatever comes naturally.
The goal isn't one good conflict style. It's knowing when to use all five.
That same flexibility matters even more once the conflict isn't yours to manage, when the skill becomes knowing when to step in and how to run a conversation that actually resolves it.
Build the Skill, Not Just the Knowledge
Reading about the five conflict modes is a useful starting point. Knowing which one you default to and building the flexibility to choose deliberately under pressure is what MiTraining's Conflict Resolution Training, which delivers the official Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument, is built to develop.
Participants complete the TKI assessment, examine their own results, and leave with a personal action plan for applying the right mode when it matters.
