The most dangerous conflicts in a department are often the ones no one is talking about.
Avoidance-based conflict is different from other types in one important way: it does not begin with a confrontation. It begins with a choice not to confront — repeated quietly, over time, until the accumulated weight of unaddressed tension becomes something much harder to manage than the original issue ever was.
Faculty avoid conflict for understandable reasons: fear of damaging relationships, uncertainty about how to raise concerns professionally, a belief that things will resolve on their own, or a sense that the chair won’t respond constructively. These are not failures of character. But avoidance, however well-intentioned, creates more problems than it solves. What starts as a minor irritation becomes a pattern. What starts as a pattern becomes entrenched. And when it finally surfaces — often triggered by something small — it arrives with the full emotional weight of everything that was never said.
What Avoidance-Based Conflict Looks Like
Two faculty members who used to collaborate now interact only when necessary. A faculty member makes consistently passive-aggressive comments in meetings but deflects when addressed directly. A concern that everyone seems to know about is never raised in any formal setting. A conflict that appeared to be resolved keeps resurfacing in slightly different forms.
The chair’s challenge here is that avoidance-based conflict is often invisible until it isn’t. By the time it surfaces, the underlying issues may be months or years old — and the people involved may have built elaborate narratives about each other that make resolution feel impossible. The earlier you can detect the pattern, the easier it is to address.
Avoidance is often about fear — fear of confrontation, fear of making things worse, fear of damaging a relationship or a career. Faculty who are avoiding conflict are not being passive or weak. They are trying to protect something. Your job is to create conditions where raising concerns feels safer than staying silent.
Address the avoidance pattern directly — not just the issue underneath it. When you notice faculty sidestepping something, name what you are observing without judgment: “I’m sensing there may be some unresolved concerns here. What would help us address this constructively?” This opens a door without forcing anyone through it.
Your First Move as Chair
Before trying to surface the conflict, make it safe to do so. If faculty don’t trust that raising a concern will be received constructively, they will continue to avoid. Invest in regular one-on-one check-ins, normalize conflict as part of healthy collaboration, and model direct but respectful communication in your own interactions. Safety is built before conflict arrives, not during it.
Surface the pattern without attributing blame. When you notice avoidance signals — faculty working around each other, passive-aggressive dynamics, issues that everyone knows about but no one raises — address it directly and neutrally: “I’ve noticed some tension between you two that seems to be affecting how you’re working together. I’d like to understand what’s happening.” You are naming a reality, not making an accusation.
Watch for conflict that appears resolved but isn’t. When people agree to move forward without actually surfacing what was wrong, the conflict goes underground rather than resolving. After any attempted resolution, check in individually: “How are things feeling now? Is there anything that still feels unresolved?” Give the conversation permission to continue rather than closing it prematurely.
Five Paths Connection
How your leadership style affects whether avoidance takes root
Warriors tend to address conflict directly — which can be genuinely valuable in surfacing avoidance-based conflict. The risk is moving too quickly to resolution before the underlying issue is fully understood. If this is your dominant path, resist the urge to declare the conflict resolved once a conversation has happened. Follow up.
Relators are often the first to sense avoidance-based conflict because they are attuned to interpersonal dynamics. The risk is that a strong Relator path can contribute to avoidance — not wanting to disrupt relationships by surfacing difficult truths. If this is your dominant path, practice naming what you observe even when it feels uncomfortable. The discomfort of naming it is almost always smaller than the cost of leaving it unnamed.
Critical Thinkers and Visionaries may miss avoidance-based conflict entirely because they are focused on the work rather than the relationships. If either of these is your dominant path, build in regular attention to the relational temperature of your department — not just to task completion and strategic direction.
Reflect
Think about the unspoken tensions in your department — the things everyone seems to know about but no one raises directly.
- What issues are being avoided in your department right now? How long have they been avoided?
- Why might faculty not feel safe raising those concerns? What would need to change for them to feel safer doing so?
- Have you inadvertently contributed to avoidance by responding to past concerns in ways that discouraged future ones?
- What is one concrete step you could take to make it safer to raise concerns in your department before the next conflict erupts?
What tensions in your department are being avoided right now — and what do you think is making it feel unsafe to surface them?