Conflict between directors of a company or the conflict arising in a management team is common. It can arise instantly or develop and escalate over time and has many sources. I will refer here mainly to conflicts in the management team at the top of the organisation, the Board of the company or the Senior Management Team, whatever name this team bears in the organisation.

Several sources cause conflicts to arise and be maintained between members of the top management team, which can become personal if not dealt with skilfully and in time. Conflict does not always have a negative connotation in the board team and dealing with it with openness and constructivism can lead to organisational changes that stimulate development or transformation.

There are many situations where, if the conflict state has not been addressed in time and constructively, conflict evolves undermining the authority of some team members or even the team leader, encouraging the use of influence and the creation of cliques and, ultimately, the creation of that "politics" in the organisation that is often unproductive and negatively perceived by the people in the company. What better reason not to collaborate at the N - 2 level or lower in the organization than the fact that "the bosses up there don't get along anyway"?

Here are some common sources of conflict in the leadership team.

The team meeting is a common space for any management team and is where routines most easily take hold, especially unproductive routines that arise under the influence of daily pressures and perpetually changing priorities. There are very few teams that keep strategy and operational issues separate, or that use distributed leadership and rotationally assigned roles in meetings. This all sounds very simple and yet it is out of the habit of team members perhaps feeling that they are wasting time or that they already know each other well enough that they don't need to have some kind of structure and interpersonal approach.

The management meeting needs to exist and be conducted in such a way that people come out of it with clarity, with decisions taken, with a feeling that they can rely on their colleagues in implementing those decisions, and a good feeling that it was a safe space for thought and debate. It's just that sometimes there is no such debate, but rather a combative atmosphere in which not everyone is equal and in which many points of view are imposed rather by the force of certain arguments or behaviours. Sometimes it leads to instant conflict, other times the conflict is latent or simmering.

Behaviours and attitudes of managers

These behaviours are the main source of organisational culture, as managers often forget this and consider certain reactions to the situation on the ground or to the solutions and proposals that their colleagues bring to the management meeting as justified.

When I say "source of organisational culture" I mean that, by mirroring, the behaviours that managers have towards each other are often insinuated into their teams. Attitudes towards "the finance guys" or "the sales guys" or neutral and impersonal "it's been decided" expressions when the decision comes from a forum you are part of, all lead to generating an attitude that does not support commitment and enthusiasm for the decisions you go in front of your team with.

Clearly, this kind of attitude leads to conflict the first time something goes wrong. Everything is ok when something needs to change in other departments.

In any organisation, and certainly in any management team, there are explicit but also implicit behaviours and attitudes. For example, beliefs learned over time about how decisions are made (seemingly unchangeable), assumptions about the right to intervene or express an opinion (we are not all equal or contribute unless we are experts), or assumptions about the appropriateness of intervening or keeping opinions to yourself. The state of tension and willingness to collaborate is directly influenced by all this. By the assumptions and  hypotheses it start from. 

The organisation's financial management processes and structure

In other words, who has the most influence over decisions about resources and budgets in the organisation? Do the CEO or CFO become the people on whom both the attention and intent to influence and the annoyance is channelled when other departments don't get the resources they want? If the team can make consensual decisions about how resources are allocated and generated then, the debates will be to seek balancing solutions. If, however, these decisions are imposed, either by a particular function or by the hierarchy, the other members of the management team will eventually accept them (because we all know how the organisation works) but may retain resentment or may end up with comparative competitive thinking that weakens relationships and pushes the management team into an area of formalism that damages relationships and pushes the management team into an area of tension.

This is a classic source of tension because the combined team returns to an early stage of formation and the dynamics, and the alliances, change completely. Team members' perceptions of newcomers can influence the speed of integration and willingness to collaborate. These teams in formation need to be given support and working with an external facilitator, and a team coach to support the team to become a psychologically safe space for all team members can be a very good investment.

Psychological safety means several things, according to the latest published research (Timothy R. Clark, The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety: Defining the Path to Inclusion and Innovation): it means feeling safe about your contribution, feeling safe if you don't know and need to learn from others, feeling safe to bring up an error or mistake, your own or others', challenging them, and, it means psychological safety related to inclusion (who you are and your acceptance as a human being, without judgement). There are very few management teams in which all four forms of psychological safety are manifested because there are so many expectations and value judgments related to the need for competence and the expectation that if you got to this place you need to know in every situation what to do. It's just that the reality is very far from that scenario in the VUCA environment we live in.

In the case of a mixed top management team, with members coming from two merging companies, this psychological safety needs to be carefully built. The lack of it is likely to be a source of subsequent tensions that will greatly reduce the ability to adapt and collaborate between members of a company that is suddenly perhaps larger, covers a more diverse range of products and customers, and has to make countless system integrations or changes in the way it works. Even more so, eliminating destructive conflict and keeping any discussion in a constructive zone increases in importance.

Findings from various audits, internal or external

There is no need to go into too much detail here. Anyone who has been through such audits knows that they are a source of stress and pressure and often a source of conflict between members of a management team. Perhaps here, repositioning oneself in relation to the audit findings and refocusing on finding improvement solutions is a strategy that will pay off in the long run.

Different views on how to achieve the organisation's objectives

This kind of difference of opinion can be one of the healthiest things that can happen to a management team, provided its members build on each other's vision and complement it with their own instead of conflating it and getting stuck at one point in completely opposing views. Unfortunately, competitiveness is often stronger than collaboration.

Debating strategy or discussing how best to use company resources is part of the arsenal of responsibilities of a top management team. Very often these strategic issues are mixed up with operational issues that block progress on the topic. This habit can keep members of the top management team on edge because it is likely to come from the current operational reality (explicit or latent conflict) and they are no longer able to value the input of others. There is a need for both the team leader and other managers to create a constructive climate in which to separate the issues and keep everyone focused on the future and solutions.

One or more members of a family on the Board of Directors

In a corporate environment, this may be less common, but in an entrepreneurial environment, especially in companies that have grown a lot, it can be common. If a corporation acquires entrepreneurial companies, there may be members of the same family in the newly formed management team. I have worked with such teams and the relationship dynamics are different from the situation where there are no such relationships or personal stakes. Sometimes conflict can arise between one family member and the rest of the colleagues and the other family member can be put in a difficult situation, especially if sensitive decisions have to be made about resource allocation. At other times it is the feeling of others about potential 'outside the boardroom' discussions or different ways of supporting each other which, removes the sense of fairness within the management team.

There are plenty of companies that have rules around these issues but there are also companies where the situation is found and requires attention from leadership.

A similar case is, in the case of entrepreneurial companies, the direct involvement of the shareholder in day-to-day operational life and the way power is manifested and decisions are made. If there are members of the management team who come from a different background and who are recruited from a different company culture, they may find it harder to adapt and tensions may arise around the need for autonomy, the need for clarity about objectives and obtaining resources.

Unclear roles and responsibilities

Organisational change is highly dynamic and sometimes develops grey areas reducing the clarity of traditional responsibilities. Processes change at a faster rate than they can be documented. Not infrequently the question arises "...who is in charge of this?" or "...why is it our responsibility?"

When changing the structure of an organisation, changing management or transforming processes, the discussion about reclarifying roles and responsibilities becomes one of organisational hygiene. Except, this is a process that requires negotiation, requires territorial realignment and discussion of the attachments that develop over time. Very easily you can find yourself in a bind where there are members of the management team who are unwilling to reorganise their personal and departmental activities to cover the grey areas and meet the current business need. Maybe they don't vehemently refuse to stay consistent. And this is a type of tension that reflects conflict in the management team.

How can a team coaching process support the alleviation of these situations?

First of all, a team coach looks at the team as a whole and does not serve the particular agenda of any one team member. He can be perceived and accepted as neutral and objective, offer observations and ask questions that the team avoids verbalizing.

During the reflection process, the team is invited to think about how their tense or conflicting situations influence their performance and decision-making ability. The coach is an observer and facilitator and can expose people's assumptions and preferences for resolving situations.

The reason for the presence of a team coach may be that they will speak frankly about the 'elephants in the room' but also tactfully and with an invitation to reflect and learn from these experiences.

It will support the team to look at things from other angles, bringing new perspectives and helping them to take a step towards a situation they want to be less tense and more effective.

It can identify patterns of thinking and behaviour that are not necessarily beneficial and invite the team to work on changing them. Last but not least, he will be the one to create a safe space for discussion and create the opportunity to put burning issues on the table, applying the team the rules of effective team functioning.

Read also the other articles dedicated to Executive Coaching that we have published since 2022 that better outline, for those who have not had such an experience, the benefits and opportunities that partnership through coaching brings.