This article covers conflict resolution techniques that will help you in your personal relationships, at work, and wherever else conflict may arise in your life. Aside from our work life, avoiding conflict can manifest in our romantic relationships, friendships, and even family dynamics. Goals are important, but so is maintaining positive relationships with co-workers.

Worse still, averting a difficult conversation can cost an organization $7,500 and more than seven workdays. We hope you find this list of ideas helpful as you navigate conflict in the workplace. This can be a tricky area for a lot of women, particularly those who have people-pleasing tendencies and find themselves avoiding conflict because they don’t want to ruffle any feathers. If you’re someone that struggles with people-pleasing, then you may benefit from our post on how to build better boundaries so you can stop people-pleasing at your own expense.

What is the avoiding conflict style?

In your next steps, you must help them feel more comfortable and safe. Helping your colleague feel heard will calm them down and allow for productive dialogue. Nonverbal cues, such as body language and tone of voice, can often reveal how a person is feeling. When someone feels upset, it’s easy to think they’re angry with you. It’s important to remember that conflict is about the issue and not you. Give the other person a chance to explain their side of the story.

It is important to carefully consider safety when deciding whether to approach or avoid conflicts. TLG’s work began as an external consulting, systems design, and training resource composed of faculty from the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution at Pepperdine University School of Law. But TLG has moved beyond its academic roots to respond to repeated requests from corporate and government organizations for “real world” assistance. The TLG team has been chosen by scores of major organizations that must become more effective in negotiating sales, business transactions, client relationships and disputes.

Fragile: Handle with Care and Understanding

By using these conflict resolution strategies in the workplace, you can become a better leader and problem solver. ‍In this post, we’ll discuss ten effective conflict resolution strategies for leaders. We’ll also look at an example of how to use these strategies to resolve conflict on your team. When taking a collaborative approach to conflict, all
parties must begin by trying to understand the issue from others’ perspectives.

Those assigned to the submissive style were told to be cooperative, agreeable, and conflict avoidant. You could ask yourself if this conflict is worth your time and energy. You could also consider the potential risks of resolving the conflict. A leader can’t fall into the trap of pointing fingers and placing blame.

How Conflict Avoidance Can Impact a Relationship

An example of a situation where collaboration is necessary is if one of your employees isn’t performing well in their role—to the point that they’re negatively impacting the business. While maintaining a strong, positive relationship is important, so is finding a solution to their poor performance. Framing the conflict as a collaboration how to deal with someone who avoids conflict can open doors to help each other discover its cause and what you can do to improve performance and the business’s health. The third conflict resolution strategy is accommodation, in which you acquiesce to the other party’s needs. Use accommodating in instances where the relationship matters more than your goal.