A widely accepted finding is that there are five major styles of conflict management: competitive, accommodative, sharing, collaborative, and avoidant. Each style is based on a combination of satisfying one’s own concerns (assertiveness) and satisfying the concerns of others (cooperativeness). The competitive style is a desire to achieve one’s own goals at the expense of the other party, or to dominate. A person with a competitive orientation is likely to engage in win–lose power struggles.

The accommodative style favors appeasement, or satisfying the other’s concerns without taking care of one’s own. People with this orientation may be generous or self-sacrificing just to maintain a relationship. The sharing style is halfway between domination and appeasement. The term splitting the difference reflects this orientation, in which sharers prefer moderate but incomplete satisfaction for both parties.

In contrast to the other styles, the collaborative style reflects a desire to fully satisfy the desires of both parties. When collaborative approaches to resolving conflict are used, the relationships among the parties are built on and improved. It is based on the underlying philosophy of the win–win approach to conflict resolution, the belief that after conflict has been resolved, both sides should gain something of value. Avoiders combine lack of cooperation and unassertiveness.

They are indifferent to the concerns of either party. The person may actually be withdrawing from the conflict or be relying upon fate. A variable influencing how much conflict a leader has to resolve is his or her personality.