By Matt Harrington, BCBA · Behaviorist Book Club · Research-backed answers for behavior analysts
The Thomas-Kilmann model describes five conflict styles: competing (high concern for own outcome, low for other's), accommodating (low for own, high for other's), avoiding (low for both), compromising (moderate for both), and collaborating (high for both). For BCBA-RBT supervisory conflicts, the collaborating style is most appropriate as a default when time permits — it produces solutions that both parties understand and commit to, and it maintains the supervisory relationship quality that effective ongoing supervision requires. The competing style is appropriate when a clinical safety concern requires immediate resolution without extended dialogue. Avoiding and accommodating are rarely appropriate in supervisory conflicts because they allow performance concerns to compound.
Defensive shutdown in response to critical feedback is typically a response to perceived threat — the supervisee hears criticism as a global evaluation of their worth rather than specific information about a behavior. The antidote is specificity paired with genuine positive regard. Specific feedback names the behavior, the context, and the expected alternative — not the person's character or overall competence. Positive regard is communicated by leading with accurate acknowledgment of the supervisee's intentions or effort before introducing the concern. A structure that works: name what you observed specifically, name what the expected behavior is, name the rationale (why it matters), and invite the supervisee's response before problem-solving. The invitation at the end is critical — it shifts the dynamic from lecture to dialogue.
The first move in any family conflict about clinical recommendations is genuine inquiry: what is the family's concern, stated in their own terms, understood accurately? Not the version of their concern that confirms your existing understanding, but their actual stated position. Most clinical disagreements with families involve a real concern — about the intrinsiveness of a procedure, about the pace of change, about a value conflict with the intervention's implicit assumptions — that is worth understanding on its own terms before addressing clinically. The empathy-first approach: name what you understand their concern to be, ask if you've understood it correctly, acknowledge its legitimacy, and then introduce the clinical reasoning. In that order.
Avoiding conflict is appropriate when the stakes of the specific outcome are genuinely low, when the conflict would escalate beyond the value of the outcome, when the timing is wrong (high emotional arousal on either side typically produces poor conflict outcomes), or when the issue will resolve naturally without intervention. It is not appropriate when client welfare is at stake, when a supervisee's performance gap is compounding over time without correction, or when a family relationship is deteriorating due to an unaddressed concern. The most common error in conflict avoidance is mis-categorizing high-stakes conflicts as low-stakes to justify not having the conversation. The question to ask: what is the cost of continued avoidance, and does it exceed the cost of having the conversation?
Assertiveness is the direct expression of one's own position, needs, and concerns while maintaining genuine respect for the other party's position, needs, and concerns. Aggression is the expression of one's position with disregard for the other party's experience. The behavioral distinction is in what happens to the other party's perspective in the interaction: assertiveness makes space for it even when disagreeing with it; aggression dismisses or overrides it. In practice, assertiveness in conflict conversations looks like: stating your position clearly and directly, explaining its rationale, acknowledging the other's different position accurately, and inviting resolution that serves both parties' legitimate interests. It is incompatible with contempt, dismissal, or the use of authority to preempt dialogue.
Conflict between RBTs on the same caseload is a supervisory management problem that the BCBA is responsible for addressing, not a peer dispute to leave to the parties to resolve on their own. The initial intervention is separate conversations with each RBT — understanding each party's perspective without triangulating — before any joint conversation. The goal of the joint conversation is not to adjudicate who is right but to establish shared behavioral expectations for how the two will coordinate their work, with specific definitions of the behaviors at issue and the expected resolution. The BCBA's role is to facilitate a shared agreement, not to impose one, because agreements the parties participate in constructing are more durably maintained than those imposed from above.
Compromising in clinical conflicts produces solutions in which both parties give something and get something — neither gets their preferred outcome but both get more than they would have from impasse. It is appropriate when both parties have legitimate competing interests, when a collaborative solution would take too long to develop, or when the relationship needs a quick repair and partial resolution is better than protracted conflict. In clinical contexts, compromising looks like: agreeing on an intermediate treatment intensity when the family wants less and clinical evidence supports more; accepting a modified data collection procedure that is less rigorous than ideal but more likely to be used consistently. The risk of over-relying on compromise is that clinical best practice is not always appropriately compromised.
Conflict styles are culturally embedded — the norms for direct expression of disagreement, the appropriate role of emotion in conflict conversations, the meaning of silence in a conflict exchange, and the acceptable distance between formal and personal relationship in conflict contexts all vary significantly across cultures. BCBAs who apply a single cultural template for conflict navigation in diverse teams and caseloads will systematically misread responses that reflect cultural norms rather than conflict style pathology. Code 1.07 (Culturally Responsive Practice) is directly relevant: effective conflict navigation in cross-cultural contexts requires genuine curiosity about how the other party's cultural background shapes their conflict communication, and flexibility in one's own approach based on that understanding.
Conflict style assessment results are most useful when they reveal a dominant style that you apply in situations where it is not well-suited — usually avoidance or accommodation in supervisory contexts where performance feedback and honest assessment are required. Once you have identified the style mismatch, the development work is behavioral: practicing the verbal behaviors associated with a more assertive or collaborative style in lower-stakes conflict situations first, building fluency before applying them in high-stakes supervisory conversations. Role-play with a peer, supervisor, or coach is more effective than conceptual understanding alone — assertiveness is a behavioral repertoire, not an attitude, and it develops through practice with feedback.
Therapeutic alliance — the collaborative, trusting, goal-sharing relationship between clinician and client or family — is one of the strongest predictors of treatment engagement and outcome across helping professions. Conflict that is handled poorly is one of the primary causes of alliance rupture: families who feel dismissed, argued with, or disrespected in conflict conversations tend to disengage from services, reduce their transparency about implementation challenges, and sometimes withdraw from treatment entirely. Conflict handled well — with genuine empathy, direct honesty, and collaborative problem-solving — can actually strengthen alliance by demonstrating that the BCBA can navigate difficulty without abandoning the relationship. The clinician who successfully repairs a conflict with a family often has a stronger alliance afterward than before the conflict occurred.
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All behavior-analytic intervention is individualized. The information on this page is for educational purposes and does not constitute clinical advice. Treatment decisions should be informed by the best available published research, individualized assessment, and obtained with the informed consent of the client or their legal guardian. Behavior analysts are responsible for practicing within the boundaries of their competence and adhering to the BACB Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts.