637 | When Leadership Styles Clash: Resolving Conflict Between Strong-Willed Leaders

What happens when two high performing leaders can't get on the same page?

In today's episode, we're unpacking how to resolve conflict between strong willed personalities and how to turn leadership tension into team transformation. That is coming up next.

Welcome to the Chris LoCurto Show where we discuss leadership and life and discover that business is what you do, not who you are.

Welcome to the show, folks. I hope you're having a fabulous day wherever you are.

Today we're diving into something that I've seen countless times in business, and I'm sure you have, and it actually even may be you, right?

What happens when two strong leaders butt heads? Or even though we're talking about two leaders and that's going to be the main focus today, what happens when two people butt heads? Right?

Two strong willed folks. What do you do about that?

So when both have passion, when both have drive, both want results, but they don't see eye to eye, that's what we're going to be focusing on.

So maybe you've got two department heads that are constantly stepping on each other's toes. Maybe it's you and a key leader in conflict. Maybe it's you and a family member, a friend, whatever.

Or maybe you're watching from the sidelines as two strong personalities kind of square off. And the truth is, it's probably affecting the whole team.

You know, we had a client recently that said we have two high performers on our leadership team who are both driven and capable, but they constantly, constantly are creating tension.

They push back on each other's ideas, they shoot down each other's ideas, they question each other's authority. And the truth is, it's draining the rest of us.

So that may sound familiar to you because it sounds familiar to a lot of people. A lot of people have experienced this. So this episode is for you.

If you're trying to lead alongside another strong willed person, you've got two leaders who clash on direction, decisions, communication, authority, responsibility, whatever it is, or you want to be equipped to handle personality driven conflict with wisdom.

So when it does come up, if you do experience that, you know exactly what to do. So let's talk about why strong leaders clash and how to resolve it in a healthy, productive way.

Know the Root—Is It Personality, Ego, or Structure? (00:02:38)

So the first thing you have to do or the first thing you need to know, I should say, is you need to know what the root of this problem is. Is it a personality issue?

Is it an ego? Is it a structure issue? Right. You can't resolve a leadership clash or any clash until you understand what's literally driving it now.

Is it possible it's way deeper than what you're going to be able to get to? Absolutely. That's definitely a possibility. But there's a lot of stuff you can probably figure out quickly.

And believe it or not, a lot of the teaching that we do, a lot of the coaching that we do is the things that I'm about to hit are things that tend to be at the top of the list.

The top of the reasons. First thing is, is, is it a DISC personality style difference? Do you have a.

Do you have a high D clashing with a high C?

Do you have a an I clashing with an S? C clashing with an I? S clashing with a D?

All of these things can be possibilities. You might have someone you've probably. If you've ever seen the personality styles video that we do.

One of the big clashes that I had on my team years ago, decades ago now, was a very high D and high C.

And the high D was frustrated with how the high C processed things and how the high C looked at things and how the high C would push back on things and how the high C would shoot holes in things.

And the high C was super frustrated with how dominant and how demeaning and, you know, just seeming to not care the high D was.

Right? So I had these two going back and forth thinking that the other person was the crazy person. And yet, as I worked with it and worked with it and worked with it, what I kept showing them is I wasn't showing them that they were right.

I kept focusing on, let me help you to understand the other person.

If you can get to a place where you understand the other person and their personality style, then you can lean in their direction, then you can understand why they operate the way that they do.

But if you stay the way that you are right now, thinking that they're a crazy person and you're just right, well, then you're always going to have this problem.

It took a long time, but it worked over a period of time. Finally bringing them in and having a large and long discussion, which still did not get them there. But it really planted seeds and eventually the two of them worked it out.

It was one of those things where I'm like, this is going to be about 20 different conversations just trying to get them there. But the truth is, after a couple of conversations, the high D came to me and said, you know what?

You're always saying that you don't have to get them. You just got to get them. And I finally took that advice and really worked on trying to understand her personality style.

And the truth is she just sees it this way and she just does things this way. And once I understood that, then I realized we're not that different.

We just do things differently, we see things differently, but we both want the same outcome. And they actually became friends, believe it or not.

They actually went out. This part really blew me away. They'd go out to lunch together, they'd go do stuff together.

So it can be done. You've got to find out, is it a personality style issue?

And if you are not doing personality styles in your business, why, folks, go to chrislocurto.com/store, get personality styles in your team, get the personality style video, watch this stuff, implement it, and start working on it.

You do not realize how much chaos you have on your team right now because people don't understand each other.

So side note, there you go. So sometimes it could be ego, sometimes it could be insecurity, right?

If you have two strong willed people and one person appears to be winning or doing better or getting more attention or has more authority or whatever, then what you can find is it can be a big struggle with their insecurities.

Now, when we talk about ego, a lot of people just have this one picture in their mind.

But the truth is ego is insecurity. Ego is the false self.

So when you see somebody struggling with an ego issue, if you will, it's because they're insecure about the other person or it's coming obviously from their Root System.

But they have struggles with somebody else and how they're perceived or how this person is taking attention away from any of those things. Right?

When you help two insecure people understand each other, you will be blown away at how messed up their thinking is and they will be blown away.

I have helped so many folks to go, hey, help me to understand. I see you responding this way to this person. Let's dig down deep, what's really going on?

And obviously it's a much longer conversation than that. It's. It takes hours sometimes to work on this, depending upon the situation. And I have had people literally say, well, I just feel like, you know, they're the golden child, that I'm just messing things up for them.

And then the other person can hear that and go, well, I just figured, you know, you're just coming in here trying to take my territory.

And literally you could hear them explain their insecurities in the moment and then they understand each other and then it's like, well, wait a second.

Well, why do you feel that I'm not doing this? I'm not thinking this. Well, I don't know why you're thinking that, because I'm not doing this either.

It is crazy when you're able to work through that. How much when somebody can understand somebody else's insecurity and how it applies to them personally.

You know, if somebody is really insecure about me, the sooner I know that. And by the way, here's the big fear when it comes to this. People are always afraid.

Well, if I am that vulnerable, somebody's going to use my insecurity against me, you know, in a powerful way.

They're going to gain power. Listen, when that happens, tackle that. But that's really few and far between. It's an assumption that most of the time doesn't play out. I'm not saying it doesn't play out.

Some of you come from some controlling families and you know exactly what that looks like.

What I'm saying is when you have two people struggling with insecurities and both of those share their insecurities, it helps the other person to recognize they're not alone, to recognize that they're both acting, you know, selfishly and without reason.

And it helps them to come together. So ego or insecurity could definitely be a thing. What if it's a structural issue?

Oh my gosh, this happens all the time. So many times we see what strong willed people, or even people who aren't necessarily strong willed people struggling like crazy because nobody has well defined the roles.

You have two people that are overlapping with authority. You have two people who are trying to make decisions and you know, theirs is of course the right decision.

If you have not clearly spelled out to both people, to everybody, what the role is of each person, then you cannot be surprised when they are going head to head. You just can't. Right.

Especially if they are passionate people who are, you know, feel that there is a great worth in what they're trying to accomplish. If it's somebody who doesn't give, you know, two shakes, then they're probably not going to be that crazy about it.

They're probably not going to be pushing back very hard. So get in there and see if there's confusion. Get in there and see if there's muddiness in the roles and the authority and the responsibility and the decision making process.

You know, work on that to get it correct. Make sure everybody understands so that you clearly show who gets to make the decisions in which areas, right? So that there's no overlapping authority.

Definitely make sure that there's not overlapping responsibility. That really jacks things up as well. Once you do that, you know, it's not like, oh, so and so won because the roles are clear.

No, we're bringing clarity and perspective to everyone so that it settles down the struggles and the issues and the egos and the insecurities and the personality style conflicts.

All of that when it is clear. And by the way, just start with clarity when you put somebody in a role, how about you just start with clearly explaining to everybody what this person's role is and their authority and all that.

So identify what kind of conflict that is. Is it personality style? Is it ego? Is it structural?

Whatever it is, before you try to fix the problem.

Clarify Authority and Decision Rights (00:12:20)

Number two, clarify who owns what. Now, I just talked about the authority and the decision making, and this goes right along with that. Right.

Another big issue or another clash that we tend to see with leaders is because people don't know who owns what.

You know, like I said, there's one thing about responsibility in a job, but what about who owns a process? What about who owns a project?

What about who owns the way that we do something? Like, let's take a marketing team and a sales team clash, or marketing leader and a sales team leader clash. Right.

You could have somebody in marketing who was really trying to push a message and this gets to a bigger issue, and I'll talk about it in a second...

But you could have somebody who's really trying to drive brand messaging, and you've got a salesperson who's trying to drive messaging that points to sales.

You know, maybe one's trying to increase the brand awareness and the other one's like, no, I need to sell this specific product right now. Focus on this.

And two of these people can be clashing heads, crudge, you could have whole teams clashing heads on stuff like this because there's not clarity on who owns what.

So when it comes to marketing, what you would want to do is make sure that you clearly define who owns the messaging.

Right. If you have sales clashing with marketing and yet they believe that they are correct, and maybe they are. They could be right. It's not saying that they're not.

But what happens if both of them try to drive two separate marketing messages at the same time? Then you're putting conf-- You could be putting confusion out there, or you could be wasting your dollars on trying to get eyeballs on your business.

Right? So instead, if you go through and you clarify who owns this piece?

Now, if it is, like I say, a marketing piece, if it's putting out something on social media, right, creating videos, sending out email campaigns, whatever it is, if it is for the brand of the company, make a decision who gets to own that branding, right?

Help sales to see what we're trying to accomplish, but at the same time.

So here's the bigger issue. What if sales is right? What if sales needs a different message for the time? You have to hear both sides.

You have to lead people to have the discussions so they can hear both sides, not just continue to banter and butt heads about who's right about what the message should be.

And again, I'm just using marketing. This could be so many different areas inside of your business.

Anywhere where you see conflicts between teams, you gotta get in there and have both teams listen to each other's signs, right?

Because maybe we'll hear something from sales that causes us to go, okay, we need to push that messaging for a period of time.

At the same time, we might be telling sales, hey, simmer down.

Your job is to make the calls, get out there, you know, get face to face, or send, you know, emails direct to specific people or whatever your process is for selling or receive calls coming in and convince folks to purchase our products, whatever that is.

We're trying to build a brand over here. So this messaging is going to go this way for a period of time, whatever it is, right? Help them to see what the goals are, what we're trying to accomplish, who owns it, who gets to make the decision.

If not, then what you will see is this colossal clash will continue for an incredibly long time and it will drop morale for sure.

It'll drop productivity, but it'll drop morale because people don't like to not like people. So would you have clashes with teams? An interesting thing is, is that you have people who don't like being in that situation.

They want to like people, they don't want to be a part of this clash. So you're going to see your morale tank, at least in those teams, and guaranteed you're going to see productivity tank.

But on top of that, you're going to see that you are putting your resources in some version of a shotgun approach, right?

Because you now have two teams that are probably going to peel off and go two different directions instead of going towards what shot should be clearly defined messaging for where we are at the time.

So sit down, define who gets to make what decisions. Define who gets to lead what.

Define who gets to contribute. You know, who's a part of the decision making process. Get alignment on who owns what so that you don't get stuck in turf wars between teams.

Teach Leaders to Lean Into Each Other’s Strengths (00:17:30)

Number three, teach leaders to lean in each other's strengths. Often, often, often what we see is leaders who lead differently and not necessarily incorrectly.

Just because somebody leads differently than you do doesn't necessarily mean that they are wrong and that you are right.

Doesn't necessarily mean that they are right and you are wrong. What we have to do, sometimes it's very difficult for us to look at how somebody leads and we're like, I wouldn't do it that way.

That's not how I would lead that. That's not how I would, you know, communicate with that team. That's not how. Whatever you have to ask the question is what they are doing helping or hurting?

If their leadership style, just because it's different than yours, isn't doing anything wrong, it's not hurting anybody. It's not hurting company culture, it's not hurting, hurting our relationship with our clients, it's not hurting the team.

Then who says that they can't lead the way that they're leading? And I know sometimes that's very tough. Many of you out there are business owners who are high Ss, high Cs, and you might hire a high D or a high I team lead.

And man, they are just so different than you. And you don't like it because it's conflict. And yet when you look at it, you have to ask the question, but is there anything wrong with their leader?

Yes, it's conflict for me. Yes, it's uncomfortable for me. I wouldn't do things the way that they're doing them. But is anything that they're doing bad? Is anything that they're doing contrary to culture, contrary to core values, contrary to what?

What we teach for leaders to do, communication and accountability and vision and goals, is it contrary to anything that we teach? If the answer is no, then you really need to dig down deep inside and find out.

Is it just because the way that their personality style or the way that they've learned to do this, it just rubs me personally the wrong way because I wouldn't do it that way.

You know, maybe they choose to be more energetic in meetings or more energetic in leading their team to accomplishing things, and you're like, it just feels like fluff to me.

And yet it's working well. Maybe their style works better with the people they're leading. So you've got to dig in and find out, is it you is it them what's going on?

And if you have somebody who is-- has different strengths in their leadership and if --there's nothing wrong with it-- it just rubs you the wrong way or rubs another leader the wrong way.

Then what we need to do is we need to really focus heavily on personality styles using DISC and help them to lean in the other person's direction indefinitely into the other person's strengths.

Right. Bringing a lot of tension just because you don't like the way they lead is not going to help anything. It's just not. I remember, gosh, oh, this is going back 30 years ago.

I remember being a part of a volunteer leadership team and nobody would take certain things and so I would just step up and go, I'll run with it. If nobody's going to do it, I'm the kind of person who's always going to stand back and go, hey, have at it.

I'll take what's left over. That's usually my personality style. But nobody was stepping up on anything. And so I was like, well, I'll step up. Which rubbed one person the wrong way.

And when we got into the conversation of like, hey, what's the struggle you're experiencing? She was like, well, you're always taking these things and running with them.

And I'm like, but nobody else is. And when we've offered it to everybody, including you, nobody's taking it. So why is that a bad thing?

And as she thought about it, the issue really wasn't with me. The issue was her insecurity that she was afraid of stepping up and taking some of those things and running with them herself.

So after we talked through it, everything was great and fine and dandy. But before it was, oh my gosh, I have a problem with Chris. Afterward it was, oh my gosh, I have a problem with myself.

I don't feel confident to do this and I should, and I shouldn't blame somebody else for that. So once you get in and get that understanding, what you will see is most likely you will have that tension kind of disappear.

Facilitate Hard Conversations Early—Not After Resentment Builds (00:22:25)

Number four, facilitate hard conversations early. Oh, for the love, do not do this. After resentment builds. Like that conversation I was just talking about, that was a very quick once.

There was a recognition of a struggle. It was, hey, let's talk about this. What's going on? If you wait until emotions boil over or, you know, people are just talking badly to other people and treating people badly and doing whatever, you've waited too long.

Strong willed leaders often avoid vulnerable conversations because it feels like weakness to them. But the avoidance will actually lead to long term dysfunction.

People, the longer you wait, the bigger the issue is going to be. You're going to create dysfunction on your team, you're going to create dysfunction on their team.

You're going to create all kinds of issues because everybody knows there is unresolved conflict and it appears as though nobody's doing anything about it.

So once again, we get back to that. Loss of productivity, loss of motivation, loss of trust, loss of being able to be vulnerable with other folks inside the team, right?

Dysfunction happens. People will probably leave because they don't like working in that type of tension and conflict, right?

We've known people that have been in those situations for months, years, until they finally say enough is enough. The tension will destroy your team or teams and very likely will create silos.

And folks, I am telling you, you do not want silos in your business. They can work for a time, but breaking those silos down and shifting the whole team to a unified vision and direction is a long process.

So get some coaching if you need it. Do whatever it takes to help you get the right information to rip that down, right? If you've waited too long and you've got crazy emotions boiling over, you gotta do something about it, right?

Don't allow the unresolved conflict to exist. The longer you do, the tougher it is on everybody. Get in there, create a safe space. You know, to have a tough conversation, use questions like, hey, help me to understand, you know, what's frustrating you right now.

Do you feel like you're supported or do you feel like you're misunderstood? Or, you know, what would, what would better teamwork look like?

What would be the best thing for us to, you know, get rid of any tension or conflict. Ask all kinds of questions to dig in and find out what are they struggling with?

What are you experiencing right now? If you will do that, you will be amazed at how much you will gain quality perspective and then be able to lead them out of that process.

Align Both Leaders to a Higher Mission (00:25:39)

Number five, align both leaders to a higher mission. You are going to find that the fastest way to end a power struggle is to elevate the goal that both of them should be working on.

When leaders are focused on personal wins, then what happens to your mission? It suffers, right? When they're aligned to something bigger than their own personal wins, than themselves, than selfishness, then ego shrinks, right?

When they see this is something bigger than me and I should be focused on this, then unity grows. It helps somebody to recognize, my gosh, I am really focused on me right now.

And the great thing is when you do discuss the mission that everybody should be working on or these two people should be working on, it really reveals selfishness to the person who's being selfish because they all of a sudden start to see, oh gosh, I'm making this all about me.

And this isn't all about me.

Now, I'm not telling you that they're going to easily back off and just all of a sudden become phenomenal. Some people will, some people. It's going to take a while.

It's going to take a couple of two by fours upside the head, right? Not literal. So make sure that you're helping them see the goal is why we're here.

The goal is what this team exists for, this company exists for. We're trying to do this thing.

And what I'm experiencing with you guys, or you as an individual, whatever, whoever is struggling here is, I'm, I'm experiencing this power struggle for something that if you're passionate about it, shouldn't you be pointing that passion in the direction we should be moving in instead of making it about you?

Yes. That's a tough conversation, folks. It is difficult. All my high Ss and Cs are like, whoop, nope, can't do that.

Yes, you can. You absolutely can. And if you don't, then it's going to continue and then it becomes something that festers and it becomes very difficult to turn around. Right?

That makes it. You have to spend way more time and effort fixing it. If you will, just get to, you know, a quick conversation with both leaders and elevate the mission, then both can see where they're struggling. So recast the why.

Right? Anchor the hard conversations in what we are trying to accomplish as shared goals, as shared values, as the vision of the company which is bigger than either leader. Right?

If we don't lead the company to this destination, none of this stuff matters. If we are not accomplishing these goals, then none of this matters.

So help them to see that. So here's what you can do. So if you're in a leadership clash or you're watching one unfold, then do not wait for it to blow up.

Do not wait, leader. Do not wait.

Action Steps (00:28:55)

You've got steps that you can take right now. Diagnose. The root is its personality styles. That ego is its structure. Clarify decision lanes, right? Who owns what.

Make sure each leader knows what their role is. Equip leaders to understand and lean in each other's differences and to each other's Strengths facilitate the conversation.

Don't hope that it solves itself. As a recovering procrastinator of difficult conversations from decades ago, I can tell you they just don't.

They don't. You got to get in there, face it, you know, knock some things around and help them to get to clarity and also re anchor everybody to what our personal mission is.

Additional Resources (00:29:40)

So some additional resources for you.

A blog post. How to Tackle Conflict Head-On by Embracing Healthy Confrontations.

So we talk about how you, as a small business owner, business leader, can switch gears from dodging difficult discussions to navigating them with confidence.

Hear me. With confidence. I know a lot of you listening to this are like, man, I hear you. But all this is a heck of a lot of conflict for me. Trust me.

We'll guide you how to do that with confidence.

Also, Episode 594 | Face the Facts: Stop Avoiding Tough Conversations in Business – Part 1.

So two parter, where we tackle an issue that affects many leaders and business owners and that's conflict avoidance.

So while conflict is inevitable, it's going to happen in any organization. Avoiding it often leads to bigger problems down the line. So go check that out. Episode 594.

Conclusion (00:30:35)

Well folks, clashing leadership doesn't have to destroy your leaders, your team, your culture or anything. In fact, when it is handled right, they can refine your communication.

They can deepen mutual respect for team members. They can deepen mutual respect for you as a leader.

It can actually make your team stronger. So if this is something you're dealing with and you want help walking through it, we've helped hundreds of leaders navigate these exact dynamics.

So reach out to us and let us help you build a unified team. Until next time, lead with clarity, communication and humility and stay mission focused, folks. That's all the time I have for today.

As always, take this information. Change your leadership, change your business, change your life, and join us on the next episode.