The Five Faces of Conflict: TKI Styles Every Leader Must Recognise

    Competing, collaborating, compromising, avoiding, accommodating — the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument gives you five distinct ways to handle disagreement at work. Here is how to recognise each one in real Indian workplace moments and choose the right style on purpose.

    The Five Faces of Conflict: TKI Styles Every Leader Must Recognise

    The Five Faces of Conflict: TKI Styles Every Leader Must Recognise

    Every disagreement you have ever had at work — with a boss, a peer, a vendor, a difficult customer — followed one of only five patterns. The Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument names them: competing, collaborating, compromising, avoiding and accommodating. Once you can spot these five styles in yourself and in others, conflict stops feeling like chaos and starts feeling like a choice.

    In short

    Where this sits on your Winning Kite

    Conflict Management is Trait #20, sitting inside the Emotional Intelligence (EQ) side — the left panel — of the Winning Kite (KITE Leadership Framework). It belongs to the Relationship Management cluster of EQ, right alongside political awareness, influence and communication. A kite with a torn EQ panel doesn't fly straight — and nothing tears that panel faster than conflict handled badly. Get this one trait right, and your RQ (relationships) and PQ (productivity) both become easier to sustain, because fewer disagreements are left to fester and poison the air around a team.

    Conflict is not the problem — mishandled conflict is

    I tell every batch I train the same thing: conflict is inevitable. Different people bring different opinions, different goals, different values into the same room — and friction is the natural result. The skill isn't making conflict disappear. It's handling it so it doesn't escalate and damage relationships or team morale in the long run.

    People who are strong at this competency are good at dealing with difficult people and tense situations with tact and diplomacy. They spot potential problems early, they bring disagreements out into the open in a way that's good for everyone, and they know how to de-escalate a room and turn a standoff into an open discussion. I have watched this play out in a government office, in a hostage crisis, on a cricket field and in a Shark Tank India boardroom — the same five styles show up everywhere, just wearing different clothes.

    The Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument: five styles, two dials

    The TKI is a valuable tool for understanding how individuals approach conflict resolution. By identifying your preferred style — and the style of the person sitting across the table — you can navigate disagreements more effectively and find solutions that actually stick. The model plots five styles across two simple dials: how assertively you pursue your own interests, and how cooperatively you consider the other person's. Here they are, one by one, exactly as they show up at work.

    1. Competing — high assertiveness, low cooperation

    This style is characterised by assertiveness and a sharp focus on your own goals and interests. People who default to competing stand their ground and push hard for their preferred solution, often without much regard for the needs and concerns of the other side. Used well, it's useful for quick decisions and for standing up for a genuine principle. Overused, it burns relationships.

    Example: During a budget negotiation, a team leader insists on allocating more resources to their own department — even if it means starving other departments of what they need. That's competing in its purest form: my goals first, the room's goals second.

    2. Collaborating — high assertiveness, high cooperation

    Collaborating means working together to find a solution that genuinely addresses the needs and concerns of everyone at the table. People who lead with this style value open communication, mutual respect and creative problem-solving. It's the only style aimed at a true win-win rather than a win-lose or a split-the-difference — but it demands more time and more emotional effort to reach.

    Example: Two colleagues disagree sharply on a project plan. Instead of one side caving or both sides digging in, they sit down together and build a new strategy that folds in both perspectives while still meeting the project's real objectives. Nobody "won" the argument — the project won.

    3. Compromising — moderate assertiveness, moderate cooperation

    Compromising looks for the middle ground between competing interests. People using this style are willing to give up some of what they want in exchange for an agreement that partially satisfies everyone. It's efficient and practical, especially under time pressure — but it can also produce a solution that fully satisfies nobody.

    Example: In a team meeting, members agree to split the available budget evenly across their projects — even though everyone privately knows some projects genuinely need more than others. It gets the meeting over. It doesn't always get the best outcome.

    4. Avoiding — low assertiveness, low cooperation

    Avoiding is a reluctance to engage with conflict at all. People who default here prefer to ignore the issue, delay the decision, or quietly withdraw from the hard conversation. It can buy short-term peace, but it lets problems and misunderstandings pile up unresolved.

    Example: A manager receives sharp negative feedback from the team but chooses to say nothing, hoping the issue resolves itself with time. It rarely does — it usually resurfaces later, bigger.

    5. Accommodating — low assertiveness, high cooperation

    Accommodating puts the other person's needs ahead of your own — sometimes at real cost to your own goals or workload. People who lean here are more focused on preserving the relationship than on winning the point. Used occasionally, it builds goodwill. Used constantly, it breeds quiet resentment and burnout.

    Example: A team member agrees to take on extra tasks to help a struggling colleague — even though their own plate is already full. Generous, and necessary sometimes. Not sustainable as a default.

    Real conflict, real stakes: three stories that show the styles in action

    Mrs. Anjali Dhanorkar and the government office that never stops arguing

    Mrs. Anjali Dhanorkar, a Deputy Collector with the Maharashtra Government, is one of the finest examples of conflict management I have personally observed. As a government officer, her office sees a constant stream of disputes — farmers, businessmen, junior officers, ordinary citizens — all arriving with grievances that need resolving, often the same day. I have had the privilege of training her subordinates, including talathis and tahsildars, and during my visits I have watched her handle conflict after conflict with grace and composure.

    What makes her exceptional isn't that she avoids conflict — a Deputy Collector cannot avoid it, it walks through her door every hour. It's that she consistently reaches for collaborating and, when time is short, compromising: she spots the real problem underneath the noise, brings the disagreement into the open, and encourages honest discussion from all sides before deciding. That style has built her deep trust and credibility, and created a culture where her team feels safe raising concerns rather than burying them.

    Ajit Doval and the seven days that decided IC-814

    The 1999 Kandahar hijack is the highest-stakes conflict management case I know. Indian Airlines Flight 814 was hijacked and flown to Kandahar, Afghanistan, with hostages held for seven days in brutal conditions while hijackers demanded the release of militants in Indian custody.

    India appointed Ajit Doval, then Intelligence Bureau Chief, as chief negotiator. He did not compete — a wrong move could have cost lives instantly. Instead, he worked to understand the hijackers' psychology, listened carefully to their demands, and built dialogue and trust patiently over days. His approach was closest to collaborating under extreme constraint — searching for a path that ended the crisis without a bloodbath. It worked: the hostages were released. It remains one of the starkest reminders that conflict management is not softness. It is control, applied with total discipline, under conditions where losing your composure could be fatal.

    MS Dhoni steps between Kohli and Wahab Riaz

    During the high-stakes 2011 World Cup match between India and Pakistan, tempers flared on the field between Virat Kohli and Pakistani bowler Wahab Riaz, with Kohli visibly furious. Captain MS Dhoni didn't let it escalate. He walked over, spoke to Kohli calmly and reassuringly, and — almost certainly — reminded him what was at stake and what professionalism demanded in that moment.

    Dhoni wasn't competing with his own player, and he wasn't avoiding the flare-up either. He stepped in directly, de-escalated fast, and redirected Kohli's focus back to the game. That's a leader using assertive, in-the-moment intervention — closer to collaborating than to any of the passive styles — to protect the team from a conflict that had nothing to do with the actual contest.

    Negotiation is conflict management's close cousin

    Negotiation is a cooperative venture, not just a competitive one. Each side has to understand the other's point of view, needs and fears to find a mutually satisfying solution — that empathy is what lets each side influence the other productively. There are broadly three negotiation postures that map neatly onto the TKI: problem-solving (collaborating), compromise (compromising), and aggression (competing). In long-term business relationships — a manufacturer and a distributor, a supplier and a retailer — problem-solving and compromise tend to outlast aggression, because the two sides will be back at the table again next quarter.

    The everyday toolkit that supports all five TKI styles is short and practical: active listening (genuinely hearing the other person's view), empathy (understanding their feelings, not just their position), negotiation (searching for mutual benefit), compromise (finding middle ground), and mediation (bringing in a neutral third party when two sides are stuck). None of these tools belongs to one style alone — you'll use active listening whether you end up competing or collaborating.

    How to use this at work, starting this week

    Here is the discipline I train leaders to build: before you react to a disagreement, pause and name which style the moment actually calls for.

    Most people have one or two default styles they reach for under stress, usually without noticing. The leaders I've trained across the Indian Army, RBI, BARC and JSW who handle conflict best are not the ones who avoid it or the ones who always win it — they are the ones who consciously move between all five styles depending on what the moment actually needs. That flexibility, more than any single style, is the real skill.

    If you want to go deeper into building this trait across your team, explore our corporate training topics or see how conflict management fits inside our Signature Leadership Programs.

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    Avinash Chate

    TEDx Speaker · Founder, The Future Corporate · Author of Stars at India Inc.

    Avinash has trained the Indian Army, BRO, RBI, BARC, JSW Steel and 1000+ corporate leaders across India. His work focuses on leadership, emotional intelligence and behavioural training rooted in Indian values and modern business needs.

    Frequently Asked Questions

    What is the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI)?

    The TKI is a widely used framework that identifies five distinct styles people use when handling conflict: competing, collaborating, compromising, avoiding and accommodating. It plots each style on two dimensions — how assertive you are about your own goals, and how cooperative you are about the other person's goals — so you can recognise your default pattern and choose consciously instead of reacting on autopilot.

    Which TKI conflict style is the best one to use?

    None of the five styles is universally best — each is a tool for a specific situation. Collaborating is ideal when the relationship and the outcome both matter and you have time. Competing suits genuine emergencies or non-negotiable principles. Compromising works when time is short and a partial win for both sides is acceptable. Avoiding is right for trivial issues or when emotions need to cool first. Accommodating is right when the issue matters far more to the other person than to you. The mark of a mature leader is using all five deliberately, not defaulting to one.

    Where does conflict management sit in the Winning Kite framework?

    Conflict Management is Trait #20 in the Emotional Intelligence (EQ) cluster — the left side of the Winning Kite. It falls under the Relationship Management group of EQ competencies, alongside influence, communication and political awareness, because how you handle disagreement directly shapes the trust and stability of every relationship you hold at work.

    How can I identify my own default conflict style?

    Think back to your last three disagreements at work — with your boss, a peer, and a direct report. Notice the pattern: did you push your position hard (competing), quickly give in (accommodating), split the difference (compromising), change the subject (avoiding), or sit down to co-create a new solution (collaborating)? Most people have one or two default styles under stress. Naming yours honestly is the first step to expanding your range.

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