Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Modes: Five Ways to Handle Conflict

Most people have a “go-to” way of handling conflict at work. Some dig in and argue their case. Some go quiet and hope it blows over. Others give way to keep the peace. The Thomas-Kilmann model gives us a simple way to describe these differences, and it’s one of the most widely taught conflict frameworks in organizational behavior.

The model grew out of earlier work by Blake and Mouton, whose Managerial Grid plotted managers on concern for production and concern for people. In this article we’ll look at where the Thomas-Kilmann model came from, the two dimensions behind it, the five conflict modes, and how a manager can actually use it.

Where Did the Thomas-Kilmann Model Come From?

The model is named after Kenneth W. Thomas and Ralph H. Kilmann, who met at UCLA in the early 1970s. Thomas was researching conflict and writing a chapter called “Conflict and Conflict Management” for the Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology (published in 1976).

Thomas wasn’t happy with the way conflict behavior was being measured at the time. Blake and Mouton’s original instrument asked managers to pick, or rank, five statements describing how they handled conflict. The trouble was that the “right” answer was obvious. According to Kilmann’s own history of the instrument, more than 90% of managers rated themselves highest on collaborating and lowest on avoiding. Their staff often saw them quite differently.

So Thomas and Kilmann built a new questionnaire, the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI), first published in 1974. Instead of asking people to rate themselves on each style, it gives them 30 pairs of statements and asks them to choose one from each pair. Each pair was designed to be equally socially desirable, so people have to choose on content rather than on what sounds good. That forced-choice design is the main reason the TKI caught on.

The Two Dimensions: Assertiveness and Cooperativeness

Before we get to the five modes, we need the two dimensions underneath them. Thomas reworked Blake and Mouton’s “concern for production” and “concern for people” into two more general ideas:

  • Assertiveness: how far a person tries to satisfy their own concerns.
  • Cooperativeness: how far a person tries to satisfy the other person’s concerns.

The important point is that these are two separate dimensions, not two ends of one scale. You can be high on both, low on both, or high on one and low on the other. Put them together and you get five combinations, which are the five conflict modes.

A Running Example: Two Managers and One Budget

This is a hypothetical example.

Imagine a mid-sized retail chain. Next year there’s $200,000 of discretionary budget left over. Lena, the operations manager, wants it for a new warehouse scanning system that she says will cut picking errors. Marcus, the marketing manager, wants it for a campaign ahead of three new store openings.

They can’t both have all of it. Their concerns appear to be incompatible, which is exactly the kind of situation the TKI was designed for. So how might they handle it? Let’s work through each mode.

What Are the Five Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Modes?

1. Competing (assertive and uncooperative)

Competing means pursuing your own concerns at the other person’s expense. It’s a power-oriented mode. People use whatever they’ve got to win, whether that’s a strong argument, their rank, or control over resources.

If Lena competes, she might go straight to the CEO with her error data and push for the full $200,000, without really engaging with Marcus’s case. She might win. But Marcus is likely to feel steamrolled, and the next budget round will probably be harder.

Competing isn’t always bad, though. It fits when a quick, decisive call is needed, or when someone has to stand firm on something important, such as a safety rule.

2. Accommodating (unassertive and cooperative)

Accommodating is the opposite of competing. The person puts aside their own concerns to satisfy the other person. There’s an element of self-sacrifice in it.

If Marcus accommodates, he might say, “Fine, take the money, the scanning system matters more.” That keeps the relationship smooth. And it makes sense if Marcus genuinely thinks Lena’s case is stronger, or if the issue matters much more to her than to him.

The risk is when accommodating becomes a habit. A manager who always gives way can end up with a team that’s under-resourced, and they may quietly build up resentment.

3. Avoiding (unassertive and uncooperative)

Avoiding means not dealing with the conflict at all. That might look like sidestepping the topic, postponing it, or simply withdrawing.

If both managers avoid the issue, the budget meeting gets pushed back, then pushed back again. Eventually the finance team allocates the money by default, and neither of them gets what they needed.

But avoiding has its place. If the issue is minor, if emotions are running high, or if more information is needed, stepping back for a few days can be sensible. The problem is avoiding something important for too long.

4. Collaborating (assertive and cooperative)

Collaborating is the opposite of avoiding. Both people try to find a solution that fully satisfies both sets of concerns. It means digging into the issue to understand what each person really needs, not just what they’re asking for.

So what would this look like for Lena and Marcus? They might sit down and find out that Lena’s real concern is picking errors during the busy December period, and Marcus’s real concern is foot traffic in the first month of the new stores. Perhaps the scanning system can be rolled out in two stages, with the first stage funded now. And perhaps the campaign can be focused on the three new store areas rather than run nationally. Both concerns get met, and they may both end up with a better plan.

Collaborating is often presented as the “best” mode. But it takes time and effort, and it needs both people to be willing. Not every disagreement deserves a two-hour workshop.

5. Compromising (moderate on both)

Compromising sits in the middle. The aim is a quick, acceptable solution that partly satisfies both people. It gives up more than competing but less than accommodating, and it tackles the issue more directly than avoiding but in less depth than collaborating.

The obvious compromise here is to split the budget, $100,000 each. It’s fast and it feels fair. The catch is that half a scanning system and half a campaign might not achieve much. Splitting the difference can leave both sides with something that doesn’t really work.

Is There a “Best” Conflict Mode?

No, and this is the point students most often miss. Kilmann’s own material stresses that everyone is capable of using all five modes, and nobody can be described by a single style. Most of us lean on one or two modes because of temperament or habit.

The model is about fit. The question for a manager isn’t “Which style am I?” but “Which mode suits this situation?” A few rough guides:

  • When the stakes are high and the relationship matters, collaborating is worth the time.
  • When time is short and a decision has to be made, competing or compromising may be more practical.
  • When the issue matters far more to the other person, accommodating can build goodwill.
  • When the issue is trivial or tempers are hot, avoiding (for now) can be sensible.

Going back to our example, the budget is significant and Lena and Marcus will have to work together for years, so collaborating looks like the strongest choice. If the CEO needed an answer by Friday, a compromise might be the realistic option.

How Do Managers Use the TKI?

In practice the TKI is mostly used in training and development. People complete the questionnaire and get a score from 0 to 12 for each mode, compared against a norm group. The original 1974 booklet compared scores with a sample of 339 middle and upper managers, so people could see which modes they used more or less than most.

That’s useful for a few reasons. A team leader who scores very high on avoiding might realize why problems keep resurfacing in their team. A manager who scores very high on competing might start to see why people stop raising concerns in meetings. The results give people a shared, non-threatening language to talk about how they disagree.

It also connects to other ideas on the site. Conflict is expected in the “storming” stage of the five-stage model of group development, and it’s common in a cross-functional team where people bring different priorities from their own departments. Choosing a mode well also takes some self-awareness and self-control, which is where Goleman’s emotional intelligence framework comes in.

What Are the Limitations?

The model is simple, and that’s both its strength and its weakness.

First, the TKI is a self-report questionnaire. Even with the forced-choice design, it measures how people say they handle conflict, not how they actually behave. Remember the gap Thomas spotted between how managers rated themselves and how their staff saw them.

Second, the five modes describe behavior between two parties. Real workplace conflict often involves several people, office politics, and differences in power. A junior employee might “accommodate” a senior manager simply because they don’t feel safe doing anything else. That’s not really a style choice.

Third, the model says little about the type of conflict. A disagreement about how to do a task is quite different from a personal clash between two people, and the same mode may work well for one and badly for the other.

And finally, it’s easy to misuse the results. Labeling someone as “an avoider” or “a competitor” goes against the whole point of the model, which is that people can and should adapt.

Key Points to Take Away

  • The Thomas-Kilmann model was developed by Kenneth Thomas and Ralph Kilmann, building on Blake and Mouton’s earlier work, and the TKI questionnaire was first published in 1974.
  • It describes conflict behavior on two separate dimensions: assertiveness (your own concerns) and cooperativeness (the other person’s concerns).
  • The five modes are competing, accommodating, avoiding, collaborating and compromising.
  • No mode is always best. Each one suits some situations and causes problems in others.
  • Managers use the TKI mainly to build self-awareness and a shared language about conflict, but it’s a self-report tool and shouldn’t be used to label people.
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