Avoiding workplace conflict may feel safe. For many, the simplest route is to stay silent and keep their counsel. But silence often carries a hidden cost: It masks resentment, inhibits creativity, and damages long-term trust.

When handled with respect and curiosity, disagreement becomes a powerful engine for collaboration, innovation and relationship-strengthening.

The Dangers of Avoiding Disagreement

Picture the scene: You have presented your latest ideas to your colleagues in a leadership team meeting. You have spent hours developing your arguments and are emotionally invested in the solutions you have proposed; you truly believe they provide the best route forward for your department. As the discussion moves around the table, one of your closest colleagues unexpectedly challenges your suggested solution.

How do you respond? If your instinct is to avoid confrontation, the chances are that you’ll silently seethe while letting the conversation shift towards your colleague’s perspective. Lynda Shaw, a leadership psychologist who focuses on helping organisations use behavioural neuroscience to get the most out of their teams, contends that we avoid disagreement because “we either acquiesce or we go quiet. We agree for agreement’s sake.”

People then interpret our silence as agreement, which leaves us feeling even angrier. And this is where relationships can start to suffer. According to Shaw, when we go along quietly with someone, even if we vehemently disagree with them, we shift how we see them, impacting our future interactions. “If we are in the throes of negative emotion about someone, we will start looking for fault in them. We will try to justify why we are feeling uneasy, perhaps because we hold an element of shame or are letting ourselves down for not speaking up. And we won’t like ourselves for that.

“So, we will now demonise them in some way or other.”

By staying quiet when feeling challenged in a meeting, we want to avoid conflict. In fact, we lay the foundations for future conflict and undermine the possibility of constructive collaboration. The conflict takes place in our minds rather than in conversation, and, as a result, it has the opportunity to deepen and become ingrained.

Creating a Culture of Healthy Disagreement

While we can each take responsibility for our own responses to such situations, there is a strong onus on leaders to create the right environment to guide powerful, open, and honest conversations. A comprehensive 2024 review of 192 workplace studies found that employee silence is pervasive, with people routinely withholding ideas and opinions to avoid interpersonal conflict[1]. Left to their own devices, most people will avoid conflict rather than embrace it.

Meeting agendas need to be crafted to create space for exploring different perspectives, encouraging curiosity, empathy, and a willingness to challenge and be challenged. Simple steps can make a big difference:

• Pre-meeting: Invite opposing views explicitly.
• During: Ask what might be missing once ideas are proposed. Explore where ideas might fail or fall short.
• Post-meeting: Follow up with quieter participants to ask how they feel about the decisions made.

Rather than simply accept the first idea as a given if no one speaks up, the conversation should be opened to explore the advantages and disadvantages of the proposed approach and any subsequent suggestions. Normalise constructive disagreement by modelling it and by being seen to change your mind when the discussion dictates.

If the consensus seems to favour one approach over another, go back to the person whose idea is not being adopted and ask how they feel about the decision. Don’t just ask bluntly; engage with curiosity and use enquiry to encourage them to open up. Research shows that asking multiple, follow-up questions encourages people to elaborate and feel heard, because it conveys active listening and responsiveness, which in turn foster richer, more open conversations[2].

Shaw stresses the importance of bringing conflict into the open. “If we can reach an understanding with one another through the lens of our unique perceptions, even if we don’t fully agree, we have a far stronger chance of success.

“This will enable progress in the project with focus, empathy, and an openness to other points of view. Thus, it leads to greater mutual respect.”

Disagreeing Agreeably

By proactively confronting and exploring conflicts, we can move past the resentment that builds when we remain silent and we can come to understand different perspectives. If we are genuinely curious and seek to understand why others challenge our ideas, we can strengthen the solutions we develop. The respect we earn through honest, open conversations directly affects how much we trust our colleagues.

In addition, stimulating healthy debate keeps people engaged. If we feel that our opinions are genuinely taken into account, we feel valued. All of this feeds our ability to collaborate and innovate.

In other words, embracing disagreement leads to positive personal and business outcomes. “We can start to enjoy disagreement and not take it as a personal affront,” says Shaw. “If we are genuinely curious and seek to understand why others challenge our ideas, we can strengthen the solutions we develop. The respect we earn through honest, open conversations directly affects how much we trust our colleagues.”