How to turn conflict into connection

Leadership

Conflict, handled well, isn’t a threat. It’s a tool – one of the most powerful in your leadership toolkit.
Turning conflict into connection is the leadership skill no one teaches – but everyone needs. Image: Getty

No one teaches us how to fight well. So we either keep the peace at the expense of honesty, or speak the truth in ways that burn bridges.

But conflict, handled well, isn’t a threat. It’s a tool – one of the most powerful in your leadership toolkit.

Over the past five years, I’ve coached hundreds of leaders and high-performing teams. The best don’t avoid conflict. They know how to use it to build trust, spark innovation, and deepen connection.

Here’s how to fight smarter – in five steps.

Step One: Identify the Type of Conflict

Not all conflict is created equal. Understanding the type you’re facing is the first step to resolving it.

Most tensions fall into three buckets:

  1. Task conflict: Disagreements about the work – what to do, how to do it, and when. When handled well, task conflict can improve decision-making, creativity, and team performance. One Harvard Business Review study found healthy task conflict can boost innovation by up to 40%.
  1. Relationship conflict: Tension from interpersonal issues – communication styles, energy levels, or temperaments. This is the type that, if left unresolved, can sink team satisfaction and performance.
  2. Values conflict: Clashes rooted in fundamental differences – belief systems or worldviews. These are the hardest to resolve because they’re not just about what we do, they’re about who we are.
Turning conflict into connection is the leadership skill no one teaches – but everyone needs. Image: Getty

Label it wrong – say, mistaking a values clash for a task issue – and you’ll end up with surface fixes that miss the root cause. The key is to slow down and ask: What kind of conflict is this, really?

Step Two: Interrupt Your Default Reaction

Conflict isn’t the problem. It’s how we react to it that derails relationships.

Neuroscience explains why: conflict triggers the brain’s survival mode. Logic shuts down. Empathy disappears. We default to one of four reactive patterns – what I call the “four F-words”:

  1. Fight: Argue, control, dominate.
  2. Flight: Avoid, withdraw, disengage.
  3. Freeze: Shut down, go numb.
  4. Fawn: Over-agree, appease, abandon your own needs.

These protective instincts are not productive. They distort your ability to listen, collaborate, and make good decisions.

The solution? Notice your reaction. Then pause, breathe, and choose a different response.

Step Three: Ask Before You Act

To act, rather than react, use this “Fight Smarter Checklist”:

  1. Is it worth it? Is this a one-off irritation, or a recurring issue? Will addressing it move the relationship forward?
  1. What’s my role in this? Have I contributed to the tension? Am I calm, or triggered? If you’re feeling defensive, critical, contemptuous or showing signs of stonewalling – what the Gottmans call the “four horsemen of the apocalypse” – you’re not ready to engage yet. If you do, you’re much more likely to make the conflict worse, not better.
  1. What outcome do I want? Am I trying to win, or to be heard? While most people get stuck in a loop of “me vs you”, the best leaders widen the lens and ask: “What does the relationship need from us right now?”
Turning conflict into connection is the leadership skill no one teaches – but everyone needs. Image: Getty

These questions help you slow down, self-regulate, and enter tough conversations with intention.

Step Four: Use the Right Tools

When you’re ready to engage, good intentions aren’t enough. You need practical tools. Here are two that make all the difference:

Disarm Defensiveness

When someone feels threatened, your job is to lower the emotional temperature. That starts with listening. If you launch into your point of view, you risk it falling on deaf ears. 

  • Start with curiosity: This might sound like, “Help me understand where you’re coming from” or “What’s feeling most important to you right now?”
  • Practice mirroring: Repeat the last few words the other person said, with an inquisitive tone. For example, if someone says, “I don’t feel like my work is being recognised,” you might respond, “Not feeling recognised?” This invites the other person to keep opening up and lower their guard. But you’ve got to be genuinely attentive, otherwise you risk sounding robotic. 
  • Label emotions: This might sound like, “I’m sensing this project is irritating you” or “It seems like you’re really disappointed in this result.” Even if you’re slightly off, your attempt to understand the other person can build trust and help them feel safe and seen. Then the conversation can shift from resistance to collaboration.

Challenge with Care

Once defensiveness drops, you can surface your perspective – clearly and kindly. 

  • Separate intent from impact: When raising a concern with someone, focus on sharing the impact of their actions. Assume good intent or ask them what their intention was. For example, “I know that wasn’t your intention, but here’s how it landed for me” or “What did you mean when you said that?” Never collapse intent with the impact of their actions, otherwise you will provoke defensiveness.
Turning conflict into connection is the leadership skill no one teaches – but everyone needs. Image: Getty
  • Stick to observations, not judgements: “You are lazy” is a judgement. It focuses on the person’s character and not their behaviour. Instead, sharing an observation sounds like, “You said you’d send the document last week and I haven’t received it.” One way to overcome the natural human tendency to jump to conclusions is to stop and ask yourself, “What did I actually see or hear?” If you can’t point to specific behaviour, you’re probably in judgement territory.

Step Five: Prepare Before the Conflict Happens

Like death and taxes, conflict is inevitable. The best leaders don’t just react to it – they prepare for it.

They talk to co-founders about how to handle disagreements. They ask teams for feedback preferences before things go wrong. They normalise tension, instead of fearing it.

In my work with leadership teams, I use a “conflict pre-mortem” – a set of questions teams answer before conflict arises:

  • How do we prefer to handle disagreement?
  • What are our early warning signs of conflict?
  • How do we want to repair when things break down?

Preparation won’t prevent every rupture. But it makes repair faster.

The Bottom Line: Conflict Can Be Constructive

Handled well, conflict creates clarity. It builds trust. It strengthens relationships.

The goal isn’t to avoid hard conversations. It’s to get better at having them. Because the best leaders aren’t the ones who avoid tension. They’re the ones who navigate it without losing connection.

So next time a tough moment arises, pause. Breathe. And fight smarter.

As Thomas Crum said: “The quality of our lives depends not on whether we have conflicts, but on how we respond to them.”



May Samali is the Founder and CEO of Human Leadership Lab, a global leadership development company. As a speaker, facilitator, coach, researcher, investor and board director, May wears multiple hats to unlock leadership potential in organisations, teams and individuals.

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