Tsukishima is very blunt and will sometimes rile his teammates up due to his antagonistic nature (most notably being Hinata, Kageyama, Nishinoya, and Tanaka) and sometimes other teams because of his casual smug attitude, taking pride in and relishing when his opponents see him as a nuisance as seen with Tendō and Shirabu.

Whenever someone does or says something stupid or silly, he is usually seen snickering in the background. However, he does seem to be intimidated by his seniors, being nowhere in sight when Daichi reprimands Tanaka for antagonizing Aoba Johsai even though he did so as well or backing down whenever Ennoshita calls him out.

Despite coming across as arrogant, Tsukishima has low self-esteem and thinks of himself as inferior to others in certain areas. This is first noted to be a surprise by Kuroo, who accidentally riles him up by suggesting he'll lose to Hinata, to which he says that he's already below him. After the Shiratorizawa match, despite being the MVP, he's seen calling himself lame for only being able to block Ushijima's spikes once, only adding to how little he believes in himself and his achievements. While he willingly admits his own faults, he does not like it when others point these things out, becoming annoyed and angry when Hinata tried to take responsibility in blocking Ushijima and then when Bokuto called his blocks weak in a sense of strength given how easily he got by him during practice.