Common Responses to Conflict and Their Impact on Groups

Conflict is a normal part of working in groups – but what sets high-performing teams apart isn’t the absence of conflict. It’s how people respond to it. Whether someone shuts down, digs in, gives ground too easily, or genuinely works toward a solution, each response sends ripples through the entire group. Understanding these response patterns is one of the most practical tools any leader or team member can develop.

Why conflict responses matter more than conflict itself 🔗

Psychologists Kenneth Thomas and Ralph Kilmann spent years studying how people behave during workplace disagreements. Their research, formalized in 1974 as the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI), identified five distinct responses to conflict, each shaped by two factors: how assertive a person is in pushing their own needs, and how cooperative they are in addressing others’ needs. These two dimensions – assertiveness and cooperativeness – combine to produce very different behaviors, with very different consequences for the group.

The five responses are: avoiding, accommodating, competing, compromising, and collaborating. This post focuses on how three of these – withdrawing, giving in or forcing, and the more constructive options of compromising and cooperating – play out in real group settings and what they cost or contribute over time.

Withdrawing from conflict 🔗

Some people respond to conflict by stepping back entirely. They go quiet in meetings, delay decisions, or physically avoid the people involved. This is the avoiding style – characterized by low assertiveness and low cooperativeness. The person neither pushes for their own needs nor engages with the other party’s concerns.

Why people withdraw 🔗

Withdrawal is rarely about laziness. According to the TKI framework, people often default to avoidance when they feel the issue is trivial, when they believe they have no chance of winning, or when they fear the confrontation will do more damage than the unresolved issue. In many cases, it’s not a conscious choice at all – it’s an automatic response driven by low confidence or a deep discomfort with disagreement.

A significant driver is feelings of powerlessness. Research on avoidance as a conflict behavior notes that avoidance is a strategy commonly used by individuals who perceive themselves as having relatively little power in a situation. When someone doesn’t believe their voice will change anything, staying silent can feel rational – even protective.

The cost to the group 🔗

Short-term, avoidance can reduce immediate tension. But the longer-term effects on group health are well-documented and largely negative. Research on conflict avoidance consistently links it to emotional suppression, increased stress, and reduced team cohesiveness. Unresolved issues don’t disappear – they fester, often resurfacing later as bigger disagreements or quiet resentment.

There’s also a structural cost. Studies on team conflict management show that avoidance behaviors reduce a team’s overall potential because the ideas and perspectives hidden beneath the conflict never get aired. When people consistently avoid, the group loses access to the kind of productive disagreement that drives better decisions. A longitudinal study on group decision-making found that groups using avoidance styles consistently made less effective decisions than those using cooperative, integrative approaches.

One important nuance: avoidance isn’t always destructive. Postponing a low-stakes argument to stay focused on a deadline, or stepping back from a conflict when emotions are running too high for productive dialogue, can be sensible. The problem arises when avoidance becomes a default rather than a deliberate, situational choice.

Giving in vs. forcing decisions 🔗

Two other common responses sit at opposite ends of the assertiveness spectrum: accommodating (giving in) and competing (forcing one’s position). Both are one-sided – and both carry risks when overused.

Giving in: the accommodating style 🔗

Accommodating means prioritizing the other person’s needs over your own. It’s low in assertiveness and high in cooperativeness. On the surface, it looks like generosity – agreeing to keep the peace, yielding to a colleague’s preference, or letting someone else’s idea win the day. And sometimes, this is exactly the right thing to do: when the issue isn’t important to you, when the relationship matters more than the outcome, or when you realize the other person simply has a stronger case.

But regular accommodators face a specific long-term trap. When they consistently set aside their own concerns without reciprocation, resentment builds quietly. Over time, that resentment can shift the accommodator into the opposite extreme – suddenly competing aggressively – which creates confusion and new conflict in the group. Others may also stop taking accommodators seriously, reading their agreement as a lack of genuine investment rather than cooperative goodwill.

In group settings, an over-accommodating culture can also suppress the diversity of thought that makes groups effective. Research on group conflict dynamics notes that when members default to being peacemakers, it can come at the expense of other members’ wellbeing and undermine the group’s core purpose.

Forcing decisions: the competing style 🔗

At the other end sits competing – high assertiveness, low cooperativeness. Someone using this style pushes hard for their own position and doesn’t particularly care about satisfying the other party. The TKI framework identifies several legitimate uses for this approach: protecting important interests under attack, making urgent decisions where there’s no time for consensus, or standing firm on non-negotiable ethical issues.

The problem is the relational damage it causes when overused. The person on the losing side of a competitive exchange often walks away feeling resentful or undervalued. Over time, this erodes trust within the group. People stop sharing ideas openly, knowing they’ll be steamrolled. Leadership research consistently shows that while assertiveness can drive faster resolution and reinforce authority, it lowers morale and autonomy – especially among team members who are equally capable and invested.

How these two styles interact in groups 🔗

When an accommodating person and a competing person work together, a predictable dynamic emerges: one consistently wins, the other consistently loses. This might look like stability from the outside, but it’s actually a fragile and often inequitable arrangement. The accommodator’s accumulated frustration eventually breaks the pattern – often badly. Group communication research describes how “obliging” and “dominating” styles create a structural imbalance that undermines genuine collaboration and stifles the group’s collective intelligence over time.

Compromising and cooperating: the more sustainable paths 🔗

The two conflict responses most associated with healthy, durable group dynamics are compromising and collaborating. Both sit in the cooperative half of the TKI model, but they differ in how much they ask of the parties involved.

Compromising: fair, fast, and realistic 🔗

Compromising occupies the center of the TKI grid – moderate assertiveness, moderate cooperativeness. Each party gives something up to reach a resolution both can accept. It’s not a perfect outcome for anyone, but it’s a workable one. Thomas and Kilmann’s original work highlights two clear strengths: speed and fairness. When a group needs to move forward without getting stuck in prolonged negotiation, compromise offers a practical middle ground.

That said, compromise has a ceiling. Because both sides give something up, the outcome is rarely the best possible solution – it’s just the most acceptable one. In highly creative or complex problem-solving contexts, settling for the midpoint too quickly can mean missing a smarter answer that a more thorough process might have uncovered. Organizational performance research notes that compromising tends to improve morale and reduce tension, but it doesn’t consistently drive the kind of innovation that more collaborative approaches can achieve.

Collaborating: the investment that pays off 🔗

Collaborating is the most demanding response on the TKI model – it requires both high assertiveness and high cooperativeness simultaneously. Both parties stay engaged with their own needs while genuinely investing in understanding and addressing the other’s. The goal is a win-win: a solution that actually works well for everyone, not just well enough.

TKI-based training consistently identifies collaboration as the style most likely to produce high-quality, lasting outcomes in complex organizational conflicts. Collaborators ask questions, listen carefully, and work to incorporate diverse perspectives into a shared understanding. This process supports open communication, surfaces creative solutions, and reduces the likelihood of the same conflict recurring.

The catch is that collaboration takes time and emotional energy. It works best when the issue genuinely matters to both parties, when there’s psychological safety to speak honestly, and when both people have the skills to engage without becoming defensive. Research on team performance confirms that collaborative conflict resolution improves interpersonal relationships and group performance – but only in environments where people feel safe enough to be candid. In a group where trust hasn’t been established, even the best collaborative intention can fall flat.

What makes these styles work in groups 🔗

The key insight from decades of conflict research is that no single response style is universally correct. The Thomas-Kilmann framework is explicit on this: each mode has appropriate uses, and skilled group members learn to shift styles based on what the situation requires. A leader who only collaborates may slow down decisions that need to be made quickly. One who only compromises may settle for mediocre outcomes in situations that deserve deeper investment.

What research does consistently support is the value of moving away from the purely one-sided responses – avoiding and competing – as default settings. A study published in a peer-reviewed psychology journal found that high conflict avoidance was significantly associated with elevated distress, while strong conflict resolution skills produced measurably lower distress across both men and women. The practical implication: groups that normalize direct but cooperative engagement – through compromise and collaboration – not only resolve disputes more effectively but also build the relational foundations that make future conflicts easier to navigate.

Building a conflict-responsive group culture 🔗

Individual responses to conflict don’t happen in a vacuum. They’re shaped by group norms, leadership behavior, and the psychological safety people feel within the team. When leaders model direct, cooperative engagement rather than either forcing or avoiding, they signal that productive conflict is acceptable – even valuable. When group norms reward honesty and curiosity over defensiveness and compliance, members are more likely to move toward compromise and collaboration even under pressure.

The groups that handle conflict best aren’t those that never disagree. They’re the ones where people feel equipped and safe enough to stay in the conversation – to advocate clearly for their perspective while remaining genuinely open to others’. That combination, assertive and cooperative at the same time, is what transforms conflict from a threat into a resource.

What do you think? Consider a time when your group defaulted to either avoiding a conflict or letting one person force a decision – what was the long-term impact on the team’s trust and performance? And in what kinds of situations do you think compromise is genuinely the best outcome, rather than just a comfortable shortcut?

References

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas%E2%80%93Kilmann_Conflict_Mode_Instrument
2. https://www.bitesizelearning.co.uk/resources/thomas-kilmann-conflict-model
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9. https://www.uscg.mil/Portals/0/seniorleadership/chaplain/5%20Types%20of%20Conflict%20Styles.pdf
10. https://www.mtdtraining.com/blog/thomas-kilmann-conflict-management-model.htm
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12. https://kilmanndiagnostics.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/TKI_Sample_Report.pdf
13. https://www.aasmr.org/jmcde/Vol.2/Vol.2.No.1.04.pdf
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15. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36520593/