It is a presidential election year in the United States, and political messaging is growing louder and more frequent as we approach November 5. What stands out most about these messages is their polarization. I fear we may never return to the days of respectful discourse. Whether the discussions take place on the Senate floor or around the dinner table, the tone seems consistent: Your ideas, values, and decisions are wrong. Mine are right. You need to lose so I can win.
How Conflict and Leadership Intersect in the Workplace
As an observer (and occasional participant) in these conversations, I wonder about their relevance to our work cultures. Could this dynamic seep into our companies, jeopardizing our ability to achieve our objectives? Worse still, could it drive people away from one company or another, leaving each organization with a homogenous employee workforce that looks, thinks, and acts the same?
To be clear, I am not only thinking about managing political divides in the workplace. Although that is certainly a growing challenge for leaders, especially over the past decade and a half, it is not the sole concern. Strict policies have faced criticism. For example, in 2021, the management team at Chicago-based project management firm Basecamp offered severance packages to employees in response to mixed reactions to its ban on political and social discourse on company forums (“The Politics of Place and What It Means for Talent Strategy”). On the other hand, having no policy at all carries its own risks.
I believe leaders must focus on a deeper issue: Could the erosion of patience for disagreement and respect for differing opinions undermine our ability to collaborate, innovate, and produce at work? If so, leaders need to swim against this cultural tide and bring their teams along with them.
Good Conflict vs. Harmful Conflict: What's the Real Cost?
Before we can put a price on the loss of good, productive conflict in the workplace, we need to discuss the value of its presence. It certainly doesn’t bring comfort or peace to your workday. Conflict often leads to rework, longer conversations, and compromise. Some companies foster a “nice” work culture where people avoid awkward conversations. On the other hand, companies like Enron thrived on conflict beyond what anyone could tolerate. As one former energy trader shared in the 2005 documentary Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, “If I’m on the way to my boss’s office talking about my compensation and if I step on somebody’s throat on the way, that doubles it? Well, I’ll stomp on the guy’s throat.”
So, what costs do these companies incur for their passive aggressiveness—or just plain aggressiveness? Look to the behavior of the team to find out: a lack of new ideas, problems swept under the rug, explosive arguments fueled by pent-up frustration, and low-performing teams. All these issues add up to costly rework and missed revenue growth opportunities.
What Problem Are We Solving For?
As someone with the benefit of being in midlife, I’ve observed a gradual shift in tolerance for political debate over the past three decades. What once inspired an eye roll now sparks a shouting match—or worse. I’m curious about why. The issues political leaders govern are deeply personal, shaping our freedom to live as we choose—whatever that means for each of us. But this isn’t new. Issues like healthcare, reproductive rights, gun laws, and immigration have always been deeply personal to Americans. Likewise, Americans have never shared the same definition of freedom—our ranking of “free rights” has long differed from person to person.
What makes one person feel free isn’t the same for their neighbor, and it never has been. What’s changed is that we no longer seem to care what’s important to others. As long as our worldview prevails, to heck with them. As David Brooks notes in “How America Got Mean”:
"We’re enmeshed in some sort of emotional, relational, and spiritual crisis, and it undergirds our political dysfunction and the general crisis of our democracy.”
Parallels Between Political and Workplace Conflict
In any organization, leadership behavior shapes the actions of all other members, and our country is no different. I was listening to a radio interview with a U.S. senator while driving one day last year. During the interview, the senator explained that he had voted no confidence in a colleague for compromising the party’s goals by negotiating across the aisle. To him, such behavior was unacceptable—their objectives would never succeed with that approach. The shared interests of all Americans (and yes, there are some) have been set aside in favor of a political tennis match where one side may score points, but in the end, no one truly wins.
The consequences of indignation and stalemates are no different from those in companies that fail to embrace good conflict. The 118th Congress is one of the least productive in history, passing only 34 bills in 2023. According to the Pew Research Center, 75% of Americans trusted government leaders to do the right thing all or most of the time in 1958. In 2023, that number dropped to just 16%.
Imagine a workplace culture mirroring our political one. Joe, a product leader, is passionate about a set of features that lowers costs and increases production speed. His passion is driven by his bonus-tied objectives to meet new efficiency targets. While his ideas don’t reduce the widget’s reliability, they do alter its functionality. Unfortunately, those changes don’t appeal to a large new customer the sales team is courting. Securing this account would push Sandra, a sales leader, into a new commission tier for the rest of the fiscal year.
Instead of collaborating, Joe and Sandra spend their time advocating for their own positions. They recruit others to join their side and analyze data to support their arguments. In the end, one of them will likely “win.” But the other—and several other stakeholders—will lose. Joe and Sandra? They will hope to never work together again. At their core, they don’t care about the other’s perspective or why they feel the way they do. In fact, they lose respect for anyone who sided with the opponent. Relationships are adjusted, and in the end, winning becomes the only thing that matters.
Sound ridiculous? Dramatic? Maybe. But we are increasingly seeing these relationship casualties in our non-professional lives.
All You Need Is ... Leadership
With patience and mutual respect eroding all around us, how can we safeguard our workplaces from the same fate? These three leadership strategies can help.
1. Robust Dialogue
Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan coined the term robust dialogue in their 2002 book Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done. It’s a powerful tool in strategy execution, but at its core, it teaches a fundamental lesson for strong cultures: Put the hard stuff on the table, be willing to talk about it, and listen to each other. Robust dialogue dismantles passive aggression. It will be uncomfortable for some—conflict avoiders may retreat further into their shells, while others might embrace a newfound license for hostility. You may need to create the structure for this type of discourse:
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At the end of each meeting, ask attendees to share their top concern, complaint, or challenge about the topic at hand.
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Thank them for their input.
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Acknowledge the validity of each point.
The cultural benefits will take time to surface, but they will. As Amy Gallo explains in “Why We Should Be Disagreeing More at Work”:
“By working through conflict together, you’ll feel closer to the people around you and gain a better understanding of what matters to them and how they prefer to work. You’ll also set an important precedent: that it’s possible to have ‘good’ fights and then move on.”
2. First Law of Survival
I once heard a story about a global strategy consulting firm that made hiring decisions based on a cross-country flight with a new candidate. As the legend goes, if the team members enjoyed the candidate’s company, they were considered a good cultural fit. However, through my leadership journey, I’ve learned that the best talent for your team isn’t always the person you’d want to grab a beer with after work. Sameness doesn’t create a strong culture if the similarities are only in personalities, opinions, or backgrounds. A leader should focus on creating a team united by shared work values, such as quality, customer experience, employee well-being, or innovation. When these values unite people, it’s okay for everything else to be different. Kurian Mathew Tharakan calls diversity “nature’s first law of survival.”
It is in those differences that true productivity, process improvements, and new ideas emerge. Our organization expanded its diversity after 2020 by removing geographic requirements from our hiring criteria. However, I’m concerned that the recent return-to-office policies could begin to unravel some of that diversity for organizations. For example, Americans are becoming so uncomfortable with political differences that they’re relocating to be closer to like-minded communities. This 2024 Redfin study found that 32% of realtors had at least one client who moved because of local laws or politics in 2023.
Diversity truly is the holy grail for inviting healthy conflict and turning it into tangible benefits. However, diversity initiatives are often misinterpreted or rebranded, making it important to refocus on their original intent and cut through the political noise. As Gary L. Neilson, Bruce A. Pasternack, and Karen E. Van Nuys explain in their article “The Passive Aggressive Organization,” based on a Booz Allen Hamilton survey:
“outsiders bring new standards they expect the organization to meet; they haven’t been worn down by the old habit of making excuses. … They often find it easier than incumbents to treat the organization more like a business than a family.”
3. Change Your Mind
One of the most powerful things you can do as a leader is role-model excellent listening skills. Not hearing—listening. Pair those skills with humility, and you have a winning leadership combination. This means bringing genuine curiosity to every conversation, and sometimes, changing your mind. You might cancel a project, give a team a bigger budget, or acknowledge that the team had better information than you when the original decision was made. You may advocate for a solution but change direction after hearing the “other side.” Ultimately, you prioritize the right outcome over being right.
I hope our country’s ire for differences of opinion can ease, but I’m confident our companies can avoid the same fate. We can invite diverse thinkers, thank them for challenging us, and demonstrate our personal agility for embracing new ideas.
At the core, however, we must hold on to our empathy for others—and hope they do the same.
