Conflict Management Styles Survey
Ken Breeding
What is Your Conflict Management Style?
Take The Quiz
Read each of the approaches listed and decide whether you use that response frequently, occasionally, or rarely during conflicts and disagreements. If it describes a frequent response, write “3” in the appropriate blank below. If it is an occasional response, write “2” in the blank. Write a “1” if you rarely use the response described.
How do you usually handle conflict?
- Use all your resources to win
- Try to deal with the other person’s point of view
- Look for a middle ground
- Look for ways to let the other person win
- Avoid the person
- Look for someone with more expertise or experience
- Insist that the other person do it your way
- Investigate the problem from many angles
- Try to reach a compromise
- Give in
- Change the subject
- Bring in stronger authorities to back you up
- Persevere until you get your way
- Try to get all concerns out in the open
- Give in a little; encourage the other party to do the same
- Make quick agreements if only to keep the peace
- Joke your way out of it
- Get help from someone to make the decision
- Decide what must be done and do it yourself
- Present an alternative to consider
- Settle for a partial victory
- Aim to be liked
- Wait for the conflict to recede on its own
- Appeal to the people in charge
Scoring
Now that you have a score (1-3) in each space after the number of the question, add the numbers in the Roman Numeral Columns to obtain a total. For example, If your score for #1 was a 2, for #7 was a 3, for #13 was a 2, and #19 was a 3, your total for Column I would be 2+3+2+3 for a total of 10. Each column should have a score of between 4 and 12.
| I | II | III | IV | V | VI | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | |||||
| 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | |||||
| 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | |||||
| 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | |||||
| Total | Total | Total | Total | Total | Total |
Each of the Roman Numerals represents one of the Conflict Styles:
- I. Directing/Controlling
- II. Collaborating
- III. Compromising
- IV. Accommodating
- V. Avoiding/Denying
- VI. Appealing to a Greater Authority or Third Party
Adding it Up
Once you have scores for all the columns, you can observe which styles you tend to favor and which you don’t use so much. It’s interesting to reflect on why those preferences developed and whether or not they serve you well. It can be interesting to “try on” a style you’re not used to, pay attention to how it feels, and see the results of using it. That way, you can consciously choose an approach to conflict that will lead to the best results.
