When Leaders Clash, Culture Suffers (#273)

The Confident Leader

BOOST YOUR LEADERSHIP IN UNCERTAIN TIMES

A CEO told me, “My direct reports are mature enough to work things out with each other.”

Right? 

Maybe. Until unresolved tension starts to erode the culture and potentially your credibility.

“Culture is how your team behaves when you’re not in the room.”
— Brian Chesky, CEO of Airbnb

This Week’s Edition

We often define culture as top-down. But it’s the side-to-side dynamics, how peer leaders engage one another, that often influence the culture the most. 

According to a CIPD study, around 7 in 10 professionals say they work collaboratively across business functions, yet many organizations still struggle to make cross-functional collaboration truly effective. That gap often stems from unclear peer expectations at the top.

Clarify Your Thinking

Despite a clear vision agreed upon by the leadership team, on any given day, strategic priorities may end up conflicting. 

Peer leaders may find themselves at odds with one another when this occurs.

The instinct: ask the CEO to fix it! 

The classic CEO response is, “You two figure it out.” 

This often pits one leader against another in the professional octagon. With full responsibility and ownership for their initiative, each peer wrestles with the lack of authority to make the call. 

These peer entanglements can create significant friction: 

• Information withholding
• Decision delays
• Complaints funneled upward
• Meetings filled with posturing instead of progress

If you let peer issues simmer long enough, they’ll get baked into your culture.

The irony is that your top leaders usually aren’t trying to create conflict. But without a shared understanding of how to engage as peers, conflict is more likely to happen.

The leader sets the expectation for how leaders should operate. That includes how they engage with each other.

Old Thinking
They’re professionals. If something’s wrong, they’ll work it out.

New Thinking
My silence sets a standard. I need to define how I expect leaders to engage one another and when I should be included to help them resolve their issues. 

Thoughts Lead to Actions

Here’s the leadership trap: thinking that peer conflict is “not your issue to solve.”

But if your leaders find themselves in “turf wars,” sidestepping each other, or withholding alignment, it becomes your responsibility. 

Of course, it is not your job to mediate every disagreement, but you are responsible for setting the cultural baseline for how peer relationships function especially when strategic priorities are in conflict. 

Because when high-level peers disengage, it doesn’t just hurt performance, it creates a silent (or not so silent) misalignment everywhere else in the org.

Here’s how to reset the peer dynamic at the top:

Step 1: Set the Standard
Clarify how you expect leaders to communicate, align, and solve issues together. Model this for them by treating your leaders in this manner. 

Step 2: Set Expectations
Define with your leaders the process for resolving inevitable priority conflict.  

Step 3: Roadmap Escalation
If they follow the issue resolution process and are not able to come to an agreement, communicate how you expect them to bring those issues to you for discussion and ultimate resolution.

Leadership alignment isn’t just vertical – up and down. It’s also lateral – peer-to-peer.

Acknowledging conflicting strategic priorities is a reality in growth.

When it does occur leaders can easily engage the conflict resolution process you have jointly created. 

Then it’s a matter of running the play they have practiced versus your team feeling as if you’ve abandoned them to “just work it out.”

Boost Your Performance

In this week’s video, I walk through a real scenario where peer friction at the top nearly derailed a strategic pivot, and how a CEO re-established cultural alignment with one conversation.

What’s Your Opinion?

Have you ever avoided getting involved in peer tension on your team? How did it turn out?
Share your experience: robin.pou@robinpou.com

If you are going to be a leader, you might as well be a good one. Don’t let doubt count you out. Have a confident week!

Robin Pou, Chief Advisor and Strategist

We live to make bad leadership extinct so forward this newsletter to others who strive to be confident leaders. 

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What is “The Confident Leader”?

During the Covid-19 Pandemic, I began a video series called “Panic or Plan?” It was designed to equip leaders to navigate the doubt they experienced and to rise in the confidence they needed to lead during turbulent times. It took off. I then started this newsletter to equip leaders in the same fashion each week for the doubt that crashes across the bow of their leaderSHIP.