Understanding My Conflict Style
Understand my personal conflict assessment results and explore how I approach and react to disagreements. Discover the strengths and challenges of my combination of conflict styles.
Conflict Style Definitions
Understand the definitions of my two conflict styles
Avoiding Turtle
Avoiding Turtle is characterized by the tendency to withdraw from conflicts, delay addressing issues, or avoid them altogether in hopes of keeping the peace. Individuals with this conflict style often prioritize emotional comfort and preserving relationships over direct confrontation. However, conflicts often remain unsolved with this approach and overuse of this style will cause others to walk over them. Thus, some examples of appropriate times to use this style would be when the issue is trivial or the disruption outweighs the benefit of conflict resolution.
Compromising Fox
Compromising Fox focuses on finding a middle ground where each party is willing to sacrifice some of their goals to reach a mutually acceptable solution. This conflict style is also concerned about maintaining relationships, but also can remove conflicts efficiently. However, a compromising approach may result in less than ideal outcomes for both parties since both are giving up something that they want. Appropriate times to use this style would be when all parties are equal in power and have strong interests in different solutions.
My Conflict Styles - Avoiding Turtle & Compromising Fox
When I received my Avoiding Turtle style result, I was not surprised at all. I often avoid conflicts as a coping mechanism, which I believe developed from frequent arguments with my parents when I was younger. Now, I tend to default to this style when I sense that someone is upset with me or when I am hurt but don’t know how to initiate a conversation about it. In those moments, my conflict style feels like emotionally shutting down or dissociating. I become quiet, withdraw, and struggle on how to engage in the conversation. I recognize that I am using this style when I go silent during a conflict, stop responding, or stare off into space. One example of this reflected in a team setting is during a group project for Tissue Engineering last semester. My group members felt uncertain how to tackle the workload, causing the group chat to become tense when members expressed frustration that others weren’t contributing enough. In response, I defaulted to avoidance by not responding to the messages to avoid escalating the conflict. I now realize, however, that my silence made me appear disengaged, even though I was still invested in the project. Ultimately, we addressed the issue in person and were able to move forward with clear expectations and tasks for each team member.
Additionally, I see the Compromising Fox style show up in my behavior when I feel more comfortable engaging in the situation. Because I dislike when people are upset, I try to find a solution to resolve the situation as quickly as possible. This results in me proposing solutions where each person gives up something so that we can move forward. I know I am using this style when I find myself quickly making leeways and softening my opinion so the group can reach agreement quicker. After the initial tension in my Tissue Engineering group, I proposed compromises like meeting in the middle for deadlines so that everyone can agree. I realize that although this Compromising style helps reduce tension and is more effective in addressing the issue, I recognize that it sometimes can lead to me settling in agreements that I am not super content with.
Reflection on My Conflict Styles
A blind spot that this assessment highlighted is that my desire to avoid conflict can actually unintentionally limit my engagement and effectiveness in a team. I value being supportive and cooperative, but I also see that avoiding issues or defaulting to an easy compromise can prevent hard but important discussions from happening. Moving forward, I will bring this awareness to future teams and challenge myself to speak up and view constructive conflict and its resolution as a normal thing instead of feeling anxious by it.