Slow down! Why doing too much is not helping you or your team
Striving to be a superhero has backfired professionally and personally for ambitious Frances. It’s time to ease her foot off the gas, says Qi Zhang...
Audio available
Coaching Corner
Embracing conflict, the catalyst for renewal
As a leader, you face complex and intricate challenges every day. At times it can be hard to pinpoint or even articulate these challenges. But until you can fully address and resolve them, they have the potential to stall your professional and personal growth, your career, and your team’s success. This is where professional coaching comes in.
David learns to see conflict not as an end, but as a cycle of renewal – embracing tension, repair, and trust to transform his work relationships.
The Challenge
David is a senior operations manager in a global logistics company. With a reputation for being calm, reliable, and solution-oriented, he likes to keep things running smoothly, both with his team and the company’s leadership. But beneath his calm exterior, David is experiencing a high degree of emotional turmoil.
Over the past year, tensions have mounted between David and his boss, the Regional Director for Europe. A misunderstanding has widened into a gulf between them. Feedback from David’s boss increasingly feels punitive and inconsistent. Mutual trust has started to erode. What began as a stone in David’s shoe has developed into him feeling unsupported, uncertain, and full of unspoken frustration.
David finds himself avoiding difficult conversations, nodding during meetings while silently disagreeing: If I speak up, will this jeopardize my job?
But this kind of avoidance comes at a cost. Feeling increasingly drained and disconnected, David seeks the support of an executive coach.
They explore the idea of a cycle of renewal, where conflict is a steppingstone to a bigger picture akin to four seasons: peace, conflict, separation, repair.
The coaching journey
Prompted by his coach, David visualizes his relationship with his boss at the edge of a cliff – one wrong move, and it will fall apart. He makes a strong link between negative feedback, disagreement, and conflict, which, to him, feels the same as damage and loss. Nonetheless, he is willing to reframe conflict more positively and keen to face tension without fear of collapse.
David starts reshaping this inner picture with his coach. Instead of a cliff – a linear movement where energy escalates – they explore the idea of a cycle of renewal, where conflict is a steppingstone to a bigger picture akin to four seasons: peace, conflict, separation, repair. In nature, change and tension aren’t signs of failure; they are part of growth and regeneration. Without winter, explains David’s coach, spring never arrives.
The Cycle of Renewal
Peace: The state of mutual respect, care, and shared purpose.
Conflict: The surfacing of tension and friction; the signal that something needs to shift.
Separation: A time out, cooling-off phase – temporary distance to regain perspective.
Repair: The act of reconnection, willingness to understand, and curiosity to learn.
David realizes he has been skipping some seasons. The more he cleaves to “peace,” the more he suppresses the other necessary phases of the cycle. The same is true of his boss: on the surface, both seem composed, but they are both suppressing frustration, anger, and resolution.
To modify the fear associated with conflict, David’s coach invites him to reflect on the way a thunderstorm clears blocked energy and makes space for renewal. This is a turning point for David. Conflict is not an end in itself, but an opportunity to repair and refresh. David has been hanging on to the fear of a cliff-edge without seeing the horizons beyond. Prompted by his coach, he begins to realize that this is a function of his childhood, during which he witnessed the conflict between his parents that led to their divorce. In his formative years, he missed the opportunity to witness and experience repair, reconnection, and renewal.
To recalibrate his understanding of conflict and position it positively as a season within the cycle of renewal, David also has to understand that repair is possible – but that getting to repair requires a meaningful break through time out; and the courage to embrace honesty.
First, he explores the importance of meaningful timeout with his coach as an opportunity to calm the panic reaction within the threatened, instinctive brain, and to make space to reconnect.
His coach also invites him to examine his internal conflicts – between his values of honesty and courage, and his fears of losing his job, losing connection, and not being liked. His “homework” is to begin making reparations with himself and acknowledging the parts that want safety and those that want truth, giving both a voice. This is the first step toward being honest with himself.
David commits to leaning into conflict—inner and outer conflict – and to orient towards repair; to master the four-season cycle of renewal.
“For David, the thunderstorm has arrived and passed, leaving the sky clearer than before.”
The impact
Several months later, David is still not entirely comfortable with conflict, but he no longer fears it. He now sees conflict not as an ending, but as an invitation for renewal, an opportunity to practice repair
He approaches his boss differently: not from defensiveness or avoidance, but with curiosity, and a steadier sense of self. Before reacting, he checks his assumptions and pinpoints his feelings – probing the stone in his shoe that has troubled this relationship.
In a pivotal conversation with his boss, instead of silently complying, David takes the opportunity to articulate how the feedback pattern between them has made him feel. This opens the door to a new dynamic, one built more on mutual respect, honesty, openness, and trust.
For David, the “thunderstorm” has arrived and passed, leaving the sky clearer than before.
Questions to ask yourself
- Looking at the Cycle of Renewal, which step comes most naturally to you, which do you tend to skip, and which do you find most challenging?
- How confident are you in your ability to repair a relationship after conflict?
- What personal story or experience has most shaped your current relationship with conflict, and what new story could begin now?
Authors
Related
Stuck in the safety zone? Here’s how to break free
Hard-working Francine is good at what she does, but risk-averse. By exploring what’s holding her back, she learns to drive herself and her organization to greater heights....
- Audio available
How to respond positively to painful feedback
Here are four ways to emerge unscathed and even empowered from difficult performance reviews....
- Audio available
Letting go to grow: How one entrepreneur reclaimed his life and business
Frank's transformation from overwhelmed investor to empowered leader demonstrates how coaching and collaboration enabled him to stand back, delegate, and recover his life....
Learn Brain Circuits
Join us for daily exercises focusing on issues from team building to developing an actionable sustainability plan to personal development. Go on - they only take five minutes.
Explore Leadership
What makes a great leader? Do you need charisma? How do you inspire your team? Our experts offer actionable insights through first-person narratives, behind-the-scenes interviews and The Help Desk.
Join Membership
Log in here to join in the conversation with the I by IMD community. Your subscription grants you access to the quarterly magazine plus daily articles, videos, podcasts and learning exercises.