When Managers Can’t Handle Conflict, It Rolls Uphill
Updated: Aug 25
Three useful ideas from Priya Parker—and one distinction I’d add
One of the most revealing moments in a recent New York Times interview with conflict-resolution facilitator Priya Parker came when she described a common problem companies bring her:
“Our team is too polite.”
People disagree, but they don’t talk about it. Difficult conversations get postponed. Decisions stall.
Two managers can't resolve something, so someone more senior gets pulled in. A difficult conversation becomes an escalation. A decision gets kicked upstairs because working it out would require people to handle disagreement they don't feel equipped to handle.
Conflict rolls uphill.
And if you're a founder or senior executive, uphill is you.
Parker’s forthcoming book, The Art of Fighting, argues that healthy groups don’t avoid conflict. They learn to do it well.
Three of her ideas I'd recommend to any management team. I use versions of all three already—Parker gives them memorable names.
1. Make apologizing a skill
Parker teaches her children to give complete apologies—name what you actually did rather than retreating to the classic: “I’m sorry you were offended.”
Then she adds something I hadn't considered.
When you receive a genuine apology, resist the reflex to say:
“It’s okay.”
Instead, say:
“Thank you.”
“It’s okay” can unintentionally erase what happened. “Thank you” acknowledges the apology without pretending there was nothing to repair.
Management teams accumulate small injuries: someone gets dismissed in a meeting, blindsided by a decision, left out of a conversation, or spoken to too sharply.
If nobody makes the repair, those moments linger. Eventually they become stories:
She never listens to me.
He doesn't respect my team.
They've already made up their minds.
Once those stories harden, solving the business problem gets much harder.
Hearing that you’ve had an impact, owning your part, making the repair, and getting back to work.
That's basic maintenance for a management team.
2. Ask whether the fight is about resources—or identity
Parker also makes a useful distinction between conflicts that are loud and conflicts that threaten what she calls a group’s “us-ness”—its shared identity.
Her example is memorable.
A contentious union negotiation is intense, but much of the dispute is still about material things: compensation, benefits, working conditions.
Then consider a 150-year-old open-water swimming club fighting over whether members can wear wetsuits.
From the outside, the argument looks trivial.
Inside the club, it can mean:
What kind of people are we?
Now the argument isn’t really about neoprene. It’s about identity.
Organizations are full of the same dynamic.
A disagreement about headcount may genuinely be about resources. Or underneath it may be:
Does this company still value engineering?
Are we becoming a sales-driven company?
Are we still the kind of company we said we wanted to be?
So when a disagreement feels unusually persistent or emotionally outsized, ask:
Are we only arguing about the decision in front of us—or is this touching something about who we are?
That question can change the conversation.
3. Get a “meter check”
Another useful idea from Parker is what she calls a meter check.
When you can’t tell whether you’re exercising good judgment or simply avoiding something uncomfortable, ask someone with good judgment who doesn’t have much of a stake in the outcome.
Better still, Parker suggests going outside your immediate circle—perhaps to someone from a different generation.
And don’t ask only people who have already reached the same conclusion you’re considering.
That last part matters.
If you’re convinced a colleague is impossible to work with, and everyone you consult already dislikes that person, you may get reassurance—but not much of a meter check.
A useful meter check comes from someone capable of saying:
I can see why you’re frustrated. And I think you may be contributing to this.
That’s much more valuable than agreement.
But conflict is not disagreement
Here’s where I’d add something to Parker’s framing.
Throughout the interview, conflict, fighting, arguing, and disagreeing often occupy roughly the same territory.
I’ve written before about why this distinction matters. In my work, I find it useful to think of them as two different states:
Disagreement is about the ideas.
Conflict is when the disagreement becomes emotionally charged.
Two managers can disagree intensely about pricing, strategy, hiring, or priorities and still be doing excellent work together. They’re listening. They’re curious. They can see merit in each other’s argument.
Then something changes.
I feel dismissed.
You feel disrespected.
My competence feels questioned.
Your motives suddenly seem suspect.
Now we’re not simply examining the problem. We’re protecting ourselves.
The distinction matters because the skills that work in disagreement can make conflict worse.
When we’re disagreeing, bring me your reasoning. Show me the data. Challenge my assumptions.
When we’re in conflict, another spreadsheet won't help. We may first have to slow down, listen, acknowledge impact, clarify intent, or repair something in the relationship.
The goal isn’t less disagreement.
Healthy management teams need lots of disagreement.
The skill is recognizing when disagreement has become conflict—and knowing how to get back to a place where people can work on the problem again.
That’s also why I’d qualify Parker’s suggestion of practicing “healthy heat” through low-stakes arguments like whether pineapple belongs on pizza.
I can see the value. It may help a conflict-averse team get more comfortable saying, “I disagree.”
But it’s still practice for disagreement. Nobody’s competence, status, fairness, or belonging is seriously at stake.
A useful warm-up? Absolutely.
Practice for real conflict? Not quite.
The capability you want one layer down
There’s a wonderfully human moment in the interview when Parker talks about fighting with her husband.
She’s a professional conflict facilitator. She knows the tools.
And yet, in that moment, she’s a wife—not a facilitator.
The closer we are to a conflict, the harder it is to see the whole system clearly.
That makes the capability of the management layer especially important.
Can your managers disagree openly?
Can they notice when disagreement becomes emotionally charged?
Can they repair when they get it wrong?
Can they seek an independent meter check rather than assemble allies?
And can they work their way back from conflict to productive disagreement without automatically bringing someone more senior into the room?
Because if they can’t, the conflict doesn’t disappear.
It travels up the org chart.
And sooner or later, it lands on your calendar.
Priya Parker’s The Art of Fighting will be published September 8, 2026.
A disclosure:
I’m with Parker on the value of practicing disagreement. And, for the record, I’m pro-pineapple on pizza.
Want more ideas like this?
Every other month, I send one practical idea, two tips, and three useful resources for building stronger management teams.
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