“Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress.” – Mahatma Gandhi

Today’s conversation is about something that’s both obvious and incredibly difficult.  I’m not sure I have anything wise to add, and I know I don’t have any magic bullet to make it easy.

Every human being is unique.  Each of them has different strengths and weaknesses.  Each of them is wired for different types of work.  Each of them has thoughts about the best (and the worst) way of doing things.  Each has things that excite them and things that frighten them.

And yet, when you get a number of these incredibly different individuals in a conference room and call them a Leadership Team, they all think exactly alike.  Every idea is met with head nods, nobody disagrees, nobody gets angry, everything works out perfectly.

OK, so the last paragraph was 100% sarcasm.  Of course they don’t all think alike, they don’t all agree, they do get angry, and not everything works out perfectly.  But you wouldn’t know it if you were there.

Too many Leadership Teams never have open conflict.  They work together for years and never have a verbal disagreement.  Nobody ever argues with somebody else’s idea.  Without ever saying it out loud, they agree to avoid anything that could ever touch a nerve or start an argument.

It’s impossible for a team like that to succeed.  If leaders aren’t arguing about what questions to ask, or the answers to those questions, and if they don’t argue about how to turn those answers into concrete action, then they’re not doing their jobs as leaders.

Think about the leaders in your organization.  Is every meeting quiet?  Lots of nodding heads or blank stares?  Do you ever notice that any time a topic comes up that could be even slightly controversial, somebody immediately changes the subject?

That just doesn’t work.  It might feel like it does – for a while.  But at some point, every group of unique individuals will have healthy conflict, or they will fail as leaders.  Notice I said healthy.  I’m not talking about screaming and yelling and purposefully hurting those you disagree with.

I’m talking about openly, honestly, and authentically disagreeing with each other.  I’m talking about clearly saying what you think or feel, even if you know it’s going to cause someone else to be upset.  Not in a hurtful way, but not so sugar-coated that you don’t get the point across.

Real communication and conflict has to happen, and sometimes it will be unpleasant.  That’s how it has to be.  And if your team never experiences that, you’re in trouble.  Embrace the conflict.