The next conflict-handling style we are discussing is “forcing.” Located at the lower right corner of the grid, forcing involves prioritizing your own interests, needs, or expertise over those of others. It indicates “winning” the conflict at the other’s expense and often includes “hard” influence tactics, particularly assertiveness, to get one’s own way.

Forcing is not inherently a negative style; leaders actually need to have this style on hand and to use it in concert with other styles, because there are times when a leader needs to guide things and be firm and decisive. If you wisely use the other styles, you will hopefully only need to pull out the forcing style in rare circumstances.