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Understanding Our Conflict Styles to Navigate Change

By Shannon Keeny

When you hear the word conflict, what do you think of, what feelings surface and how do you choose to respond when you find yourself in the middle of a conflict?

Most individuals, when they recall a conflict or are faced with a conflict, freeze, flee or fight. These responses are ingrained in us as humans for protection and survival. The truth is, we can unlearn these responses or choose another response with practice.

In the Howard County Public School System, we have used a process called the Dialogue for Peaceful Change, described by Colin Craig in his DPC Handbook: Navigating Conflict and Change. His tools have helped us support a healthy response to conflict. Craig’s insights about mindset that we considered most influential was that conflict occurs all the time and how we choose to respond to that conflict impacts the change that occurs.

Resolution Routes

The Dialogue for Peaceful Change highlights five conflict styles. It is important to remember that one isn’t better than the others. The extent of the conflict matters, and the context and relationships play a huge role in the effectiveness of the navigation and the conflict.

One conflict style is the avoider. This conflict style is about the individual choosing not to deal with the conflict in any way at all. The advantages of this style are you don’t spend extra energy, you have clear boundaries and you have personal safety. Among the disadvantages could be a loss of relationship and loss of input to resolve the conflict.

Another conflict style is the accommodator. This conflict style is about the individual choosing to deal with the conflict by meeting the needs of the other party to ensure their relationship is maintained. Some advantages are that relationships stay intact and you don’t need to make a hard decision. Disadvantages are that your needs aren’t met and you might work hard to smooth things over without solving the conflict.

The controller conflict style is about choosing to deal with the conflict by going all out to win on all their perceived needs or grievances without any concern for the cost of the other party. In this approach, someone wins and you stand clear with your values, but you risk losing the relationship because winning is valued over the relationship.

The compromise style is when individuals choose to deal with the conflict by seeking to have some of their issues met and to give ground on some of the issues for the other party. You may win a little here, but you also lose a little. Because the conflict wasn’t addressed, the conflict might re-occur.

The empathic problem-solver style is about the individual choosing to deal with the conflict by ensuring that both parties’ needs are given equitable attention. They become empathetic as they seek to engage a real sense of both what the other parties’ needs are and that this is felt as an explicit concern in their search to find a new way forward. This approach takes a lot of energy and needs a lot of time. However, the resolution is more likely to hold and the relationship is stronger.

Applying Styles

Thinking about these conflict resolution styles, ask yourself the following questions: What conflict style guided my actions when working through a conflict? Did that help resolve the conflict? What might I do differently in the future?

Now consider how we might apply these conflict styles to a situation arising within your school environment. Imagine you are on a team of high school English teachers consisting of three who are in their first year of teaching, four who have worked in the district for over 15 years each and one who has been a teacher for 10 years but is new to the district. They disagree on which books they should teach. One teacher advocates for the traditional canon, another advocates for diversifying voices. Individuals are taking sides and talking behind each other’s backs.

Questions to ask yourself, being a part of this discussion, are: What conflict style would I try and why? What would it look like to navigate this conflict successfully?

Exploring these conflict styles with staff has helped our school system promote self-awareness and develop skills in leaning into a conflict-focused conversation. This has strengthened relationships among staff and provided opportunities for staff member growth and professional development.

Becoming aware of these various conflict styles and how we have experienced them in the past has a big impact, consciously or subconsciously, on our relationship with conflict. It shapes how comfortable or how uncomfortable we feel addressing a conflict and the way we choose to address the conflict.

Shannon Keeny is facilitator of student partnerships in the Howard County Public School System in Ellicott City, Md.