This week in the world’s #1 newsletter on leadership communication:
- How to Handle Conflict in Your Team
- The Trust Expert: Why Clear Communication Isn’t Enough
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Book Recommendation: The First Minute – How to Start Conversations at Work
*** My next Speak Like a CEO cohort begins January 21st. Nine weeks. Ten participants. The communication skills that distinguish elite leaders from everyone else. Details here. ***
How to Handle Conflict in Your Team
Reviewing 2025, a CEO client of mine asked me: “We’ve had quite a lot of conflict in the team – how can we avoid it in 2026?”
I told him it’s not the right question. Team conflict isn’t the problem. How you handle it is.
When two smart people disagree, that’s not dysfunction. It’s a sign they care.
The real danger is when no one disagrees at all, or it is swept under the office carpet.
Based on my experience advising over 300 CEOs, here are the 3 leadership mistakes that make conflict worse:
- Weak leaders avoid conflict and hope it goes away (spoiler: it doesn’t)
- Controlling leaders shut it down (result: it festers)
- Ignorant leaders don’t even know it’s happening (they get played by the conflicting parties)
As a leader, your job isn’t to keep the peace. It’s to turn tension into results. Here’s how:
1/ Normalize it. Don’t fear it.
Disagreement means people care. “Let’s work through it together.”
2/ Don’t triangulate
Let the best idea win. Don’t meet in the middle to keep the peace.
3/ Look for the signal beneath the noise
Ask: Is this about the issue or something else? Could it be about ego, insecurity, lack of clarity?
4/ Yes to disagreement, no to disrespect
Encourage people to challenge ideas, but never allow personal put-downs. It’s “us against the problem”, not “us against each other”.
Call people out immediately if they cross the line. “Let’s focus on the issue.”
5/ Demand evidence
Strong views require strong evidence. Ask them to back up their claims.
6/ Zoom out to the shared goal
“What outcome are we all working towards here?”
7/ Have both sides summarize each other
It’s a fast way to build empathy and to cut through assumptions.
8/ Model what calm looks like
Your emotional tone sets the ceiling for the room.
Save my 1-page cheat sheet – you’ll probably need it in 2026.
ON THE SHOW
The Trust Expert: Why Clear Communication Isn’t Enough
I do a weekly show to help you become a top 1% communicator. Subscribe on Spotify, Apple, or Youtube.
Clear communication works – unless trust is low. For leaders, trust isn’t soft, it’s a hardcore performance driver.
I recorded this episode to ensure that you are among the trusted, high-performance leaders.
For that, I’m joined by a legend – Stephen M. R. Covey, advisor to many global CEOs and author of “The Speed of Trust” and “Trust & Inspire”. (Not to be confused with his father Stephen R. Covey who wrote “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”.)
He unpacks how you can build trust fast – through communication - and avoid the pitfalls in which so many leaders fall.
Most importantly, to be trusted, be trusting. If you extend trust first, you will speed up the process of building trust. This has never been more important as teams and companies have to innovate and move faster than ever.
Watch and listen to the full episode here:
BOOK RECOMMENDATION
The First Minute – How to Start Conversations at Work
Poor communication skills are one of the top reasons why people don't get promoted. If you can't deliver information in an organized way, you'll have a hard time being respected professionally.
Yet most professionals never get a single lesson on how to start and structure conversations at work. No wonder we have so many ineffective conversations that lead to waste and frustration.
Fortunately, Chris Fenning gives us a simple, memorable method to frame every work conversation:
1) Context: Of all the topics in the world, this is the one we will talk about now.
2) Intent: What we want the audience to do with the information we are about to share.
3) Key message: The most important part of what we are going to share.
Framing is followed by a structured summary using the GPS method - goal, problem, solution - method.
Hence the ideal first minute of a conversation (or beginning of an email) is:
Framing + Structured Summary
Chris will come on the show in a few weeks to tell us all about having conversations at work that get results.
Have an inspired weekend,
Oliver
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