Stop Refereeing. Start Building the Room.
That silence after your two strongest leaders just went at each other’s throats in front of the whole team.
Now everyone else is looking at you, waiting to see whose side you're going to take.
Sound familiar?
You've built a leadership team full of real talent and real opinions, but lately, more of your energy goes into managing the friction amongst them than into the actual work. You've been doing what any good leader does, pulling each of them aside afterward, smoothing it over, reminding everyone we're all on the same team. It's not working. If anything, the smoothing is unintentionally teaching your team that the fastest way to get your attention is to escalate.
Here's what I had to learn the hard way, leading global teams through launches and supply chain overhauls. The disagreement between strong leaders is often just a byproduct of putting real talent with real ownership in the same room, not a sign that your team is broken. Conflict is like pressure in a pipeline. If you shut the valve and tell everyone to calm down, the pressure doesn't just disappear; it finds a weaker point to blow. Your job is to be the container that can hold the pressure so it turns into a better decision, rather than a massive distraction that floods the team and your ability to impact the business.
You and I both know what it feels like to be the only calm person in a room about to combust. It's exhausting, and it's exactly the position your role puts you in.
Here's where you start.
Separate airing the conflict from deciding the outcome.
When your leadership team clashes again, don't let anyone, including yourself, jump to who's right before both sides have been said out loud, in full, in front of the group. Say something like, "I want to hear both of you all the way through before this room decides anything." That one sentence slows down the instinct to crown a winner and tells the room the disagreement itself is welcome here.
Get attuned to what sets it off, in you and in them.
Conflict doesn't come out of nowhere. It's triggered by what we value, or what we're afraid of losing, and that holds true for every leader on your team. We each shift into that same defensive posture, when something we care about feels threatened. Get sharper at recognizing it. In yourself, and in each of the talented leaders who make up this powerful team.
Ask what they needed, not who was correct.
In the next one-on-one that follows a clash, resist the pull to relitigate the argument. Ask instead, "What did you need from that room that you didn't get?" That question gets you the real information. Most of the time it was never about the decision itself. It's more likely about perceived risk to results, respect, or turf, or being overlooked in front of peers they're trying to lead.
Name the container out loud, before the next hard call.
Tell your team directly that disagreement at this level is expected and useful, and that your job isn't to eliminate it but to make sure it happens somewhere productive. Until you say that out loud, your team is guessing at the rule, and most of them are guessing wrong.
Any of your talented leaders going head-to-head isn't the crisis it feels like. Shift your perspective and recognize it as proof you still have people around you willing to fight for what they believe, in the open, where you can see it.
If you're navigating conflict at the top of your leadership team and want a thought partner in building that container, I'd love to talk. Schedule your complimentary consultation and strategy call here.
Dawn Garibaldi is a Leadership Transformation Expert, Executive Coach, and Founder of Amplify Strategy Group.
A former Fortune 50 executive with three decades of global leadership experience across five continents, she equips senior leaders to master complexity, own their presence, and build teams that are flat-out unstoppable. Through her signature coaching programs, strategies and workshops, Dawn equips executives to amplify their confidence, sharpen their edge, and lead with the kind of resilience that turns high-stakes moments into lasting impact.
Because getting back to killing it every day, no matter what gets thrown at you, is exactly what she helps leaders do.