How to Encourage the Right Kind of Conflict on Your Team

Sam was frustrated and at a loss for what to do about two of his team members who were at each other’s throats. What started as a disagreement over how to best handle a critical project had devolved into an all-out battle. There was tension whenever they were in the same meeting together, they would snap at and interrupt one another, and it was clear that other people on the team were starting to take sides. Sam (not his real name) chalked it up to a “personality clash” and decided the only thing he could do was find ways to make sure these two people’s work didn’t overlap.

As a manager, you might dream of leading a team where everyone gets along, they all see eye-to-eye, and there are no disagreements. But while this “conflict-free utopia” might feel good — at least in the short-term — it doesn’t always lead to the best results. In fact, the absence of productive conflict leads to what Patrick Lencioni, author of the Five Dysfunctions of a Team, calls “artificial harmony,” where people act as if everything is fine on the team but, in reality, there are unspoken ideas, unvoiced disagreements, and even simmering resentments.

Research shows that teams where people feel safe to disagree actually outperform other teams. They make better decisions. And the friction that accompanies disagreement — even if unpleasant at times — allows for creativity and growth.

At the same time, there is a difference between healthy and unhealthy conflicts, and what Sam was dealing with certainly tended toward the latter. Healthy team conflict moves a team towards its goals and builds productive, respectful, and trusting relationships. Unproductive conflict, on the other hand, holds a team back. Team members don’t feel comfortable sharing their perspectives, they might even shut down opposing views, judge or blame others, or be disrespectful in what they say and how they act.

So what can Sam — or any manager — do to encourage more healthy conflict?

It starts with acknowledging that conflict is expected and inevitable, and not only tolerating the normal tensions that all teams face, but also surfacing and leaning into them. Here are a few approaches for doing that.

Just say it’s ok.

Tell your team that disagreements are expected and a normal — and productive — part of collaboration, teamwork, and innovation. Because there is a natural human tendency is to avoid saying or doing things that would disrupt harmony, it’s critical that you are explicit that you expect people to disagree and that’s not a problem to solve but an opportunity to seize.

Besides just saying out loud, “disagreements are normal” you can also set norms for how you expect people to interact, especially when they aren’t on the same page. I recommend you do this with the whole team. You can offer draft norms but ask them to build on your suggestions and offer others. Here are some example norms that can help you get started:

“We communicate openly and say what we mean and mean what we say.”

This makes it clear that everyone’s opinion matters, and that disagreements are an opportunity for growth, not a personal attack.

“We focus on the issues.”

This means that you all focus on the problems being solved, not the personalities involved. Two opposing ideas aren’t “Kiyo’s idea” and “Rebecca’s idea” but two ideas that the team can wrestle with to chart the best path forward. You can also make explicit that personal attacks will not be tolerated, and that the goal is to find the ideal solution for the team.

“We respect different perspectives.”

Even in disagreement, the team should respect each other’s perspectives. State that everyone has a unique point of view, and that diversity of thought is essential to the work you all do together.

It’s helpful to have these norms captured in a shared document that anyone can access and to revisit them regularly to make updates and check that the team is adhering to them.

Name positive tensions.

To further depersonalize disagreements and normalize healthy conflicts, it’s helpful to acknowledge and even list the tensions that come up. Here are some common ones that I see in my work with teams:

• Speed vs. quality

• Inclusive decision-making vs. efficient decision-making

• Focus on the client or customer vs. the company

• Innovation vs. leveraging existing core capabilities

• Details vs. the big picture

• Purpose/mission vs. revenue

Let’s talk about that first one: speed vs. quality. On a team, there may be someone who is incredibly efficient and super focused on meeting deadlines. They feel strongly that moving as quickly as possible is tantamount. And there might be someone else who thinks that speed is overrated, and it’s important to slow down and make sure you’re producing the highest-quality work, no matter how much time it takes.

These two people are likely to be at odds, and that’s ok. This is a good tension to have. As long as they can navigate it professionally and productively, the project is likely to both get done faster and be higher quality.

If you’re not careful though, a tension like this one can turn into interpersonal conflicts where one person is painted as careless and hasty and the other slow and obstructive. And others in the group start to feel like they must pick sides. That’s why you name the tensions and then use them to frame disagreements. For example, if Kiyo is focused on speed and Rebecca is focused on quality, and they start to press their points in a meeting, creating tension, you can highlight that speed vs quality is an important tension to navigate, and it’s not about Kiyo’s perspective vs Rebecca’s.

Take a moment to think about which tensions come up most frequently on your team. It might include some on the list above, but perhaps there are others too. Write them down so that you can easily identify and name them when they arise.

Discuss the positive tensions you identified with your team. Without assigning them to specific people, explain why it’s good that these tensions exist. Also, ask the team if there are any missing from your list. Consider keeping a running list in a shared document that people can refer to. You also want to empower your team so they understand that when a tension comes up, they can name it themselves, whether you’re in the room or not.

Depersonalize

One of the advantages of naming these tensions is that you separate the people from the problem. This is one of the core tenets of the Principled Negotiation approach, popularized by the Harvard Law School Program on Negotiation.

Another way to do this is to ask people to argue against their own standpoint. You can ask Kiyo to argue for why the team should slow down and Rebecca to argue for why it’s OK to compromise a bit on quality. This will help them see one another’s perspective (even if only briefly) and it will help the rest of the team disconnect one particular argument from a single person.

Here are some questions you can use in a discussion like this one to keep the disagreement healthy:

• Is there another angle that we’re missing here?

• What are the pros and cons of perspective A (then perspective B)?

• If we were able to remove the constraints we’re under, how would this discussion change?

• What would a middle ground between these perspectives look like? What tradeoffs would we need to make to achieve that?

Stay calm

Lastly, one of the most critical things you can do as a leader is to display comfort when conflicts arise. I’ve heard people say, “A leader’s whisper is heard as a shout,” emphasizing the significant weight and impact of your words. Whether you want it or not, your perceived power and authority over others means they turn to you for signals of whether something is ok or not. If you clam up, turn red in the face, become curt when a disagreement arises, people will take notice and often interpret that as a sign that it’s not OK to engage in debate on that topic (or any other topic).

On the contrary, if you stay calm, modeling comfort and patience, your team will be more willing to engage in and even surface disagreements and tensions. You might calmly say something like, “This feels like a tension between speed and quality. Do others see it that way?” And if the conversation veers into unhealthy territory, with personal attacks, consider redirecting the discussion by saying, “Let’s shift this conversation back to a productive space. What do we need to decide here to help us move toward our goals?”

If you dread conflict, you’re not alone. I hear from lots of managers that dealing with conflicts or interpersonal clashes is one of their least favorite responsibilities. And, yet, it’s a responsibility that often falls to managers. One Gartner study from 2023 found that 57% of managers say they are fully responsible for solving team conflicts.

That said, tensions are inevitable and encouraging positive ones can create an environment where people feel safe to voice their opinions and ideas, leading to better decisions and results. As a manager, you not only want to tolerate these sorts of disagreements but encourage them.

Copyright 2025 Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation. Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate.

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