Negotiation glossary
What is Negotiation styles?
Published 8 October 2026 · 2 min read
Negotiation styles are the typical ways people handle conflict at the table. The most used model, from Kenneth Thomas and Ralph Kilmann (1974), describes five: competing, collaborating, compromising, accommodating and avoiding, based on how much each style pursues your own goals and the other side's.
Your negotiation style is what you do when the pressure rises. The five-style model from Kenneth Thomas and Ralph Kilmann (1974) places each style on two axes: how much you pursue your own goals (assertiveness) and how much you pursue the other side's (cooperativeness).
The five styles
| Style | Assertive | Cooperative | Looks like | Works when | Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Competing | High | Low | Holds the number, pushes | One-off, single-issue deals | Damages the relationship, misses trades |
| Collaborating | High | High | Asks why, builds packages | Several issues, ongoing relationship | Takes time |
| Compromising | Medium | Medium | Splits the difference | Time pressure, equal power | Leaves value on the table |
| Accommodating | Low | High | Gives way to keep the peace | The issue matters little to you | Teaches the other side to push |
| Avoiding | Low | Low | Delays, changes the subject | The issue is trivial or the timing is wrong | Problems grow unaddressed |
How styles show up in a negotiation
A candidate who answers a low offer with "I was hoping for a bit more, but I could live with it" is accommodating. One who answers "118,500, and here is why" and stops talking is competing. One who asks how the range was set, then proposes a package with a bonus and an earlier review, is collaborating. The same person can do all three in different situations; most people fall back on one under stress.
Using styles deliberately
- Match the situation. Compete on a distributive issue, collaborate where integrative trades exist
- Watch your fallback. Accommodation and avoidance often appear when a negotiation gets uncomfortable
- Read theirs. A competing counterpart needs firm limits; an avoiding one needs a deadline
Negosim's analysis report identifies your dominant style in each session from your own messages, with the strengths and blind spots it showed, as described on the methodology page. Playing the same scenario several times is a simple way to see whether that style changes.
Related terms
- Distributive negotiation: Distributive negotiation is bargaining over a fixed quantity, typically a price, where whatever one side gains the other loses. It is sometimes called win-lose or positional bargaining; the tools that decide it are the anchor, the pace of concessions and each side's walk-away point.
- Integrative negotiation: Integrative negotiation is an approach where the parties look for agreements that make both better off, by putting several issues on the table and trading what is cheap for one against what is valuable for the other. It contrasts with distributive negotiation, where a single fixed amount is divided.
- Win-win negotiation: A win-win negotiation ends with an agreement that leaves both sides better off than their best alternative, usually because they traded on issues they value differently instead of only splitting one number. It does not mean equal outcomes or avoiding conflict; it means looking for value to create before dividing it.