Team, let’s have this difficult conversation

Written by: Yamila Solari 

I listened to a great talk at LeadDev NY 2025 recently. It introduced me to the concept of conflict debt in teams: the accumulation of unresolved issues, disagreements, or tough conversations that people avoid addressing. As with financial debt, conflict debt also accumulates interest but in the form of resentment, lack of trust, and poor collaboration.

Psychologists say conflict is to be expected in any healthy relationship, and it can even be welcomed when we have the necessary skills to deal with it. Handled well, conflict can deepen trust and strengthen connections. Handled poorly, it escalates problems and leads to outcomes we are all familiar with: low performance at work, poor collaboration, and negative impacts on mental and physical health.

Yet, facing conflict head-on is not easy. That’s one of the reasons many of us choose to avoid it and, by doing so, we allow conflict debt to accumulate. The good news is: it doesn’t have to be that way. In the following paragraphs, I’ll share a couple of examples of conflict debt in teams and some learnings that can be useful for anyone working in a team and especially for team leaders.

Is your team accumulating conflict debt?

Let’s start by identifying whether your team might already be accumulating conflict debt. This is simpler than it sounds. One way to do it is by sending an anonymous survey with the following statements. If most of your team answers “yes,” you’re likely in good shape.

• Team members address the root causes of conflicts rather than just the symptoms.
• Team members embrace disagreement and address issues directly.
• Team members clearly communicate their expectations of each other.
• Team members regularly provide feedback on each other’s work.

Otherwise, keep reading.

This is what conflict debt looks like

I once worked with a team where one developer consistently imposed his technical views. He was confident, decisive, and assertive, but when others expressed concerns, he didn’t really listen. The rest of the team had a more accommodating style, and instead of pushing back, they chose to avoid the conflict in order to move forward.

Months later, the solution failed to scale. The team had to rework large parts of the system, working long hours to fix issues that could have been addressed much earlier. What was avoided in conversation showed up later as extra effort, frustration, and burnout. That’s conflict debt.

When the leader and I reflected on what had happened, the lesson was clear: conflict wasn’t the problem; avoiding it was. A team leader plays a critical role by moderating different communication styles and intentionally inviting the team to explore disagreements more deeply.

Communication styles and conflict

The way a person communicates is closely related to how they deal with conflict. Over time, we each develop a default communication style. The following categories are based on the behaviors we show when communicating. Which one describes you?

• Assertive: I express my thoughts and needs clearly and respectfully, while also listening to others.
• Passive: I hold back my opinions or needs to avoid tension, even when something matters to me.
• Aggressive: I push my message forcefully, often dismissing or overpowering others.
• Passive-aggressive: I avoid direct confrontation but express disagreement indirectly through sarcasm, silence, or resistance.

None of these styles are inherently right or wrong, but becoming aware of your default pattern is the first step toward communicating more intentionally under pressure.

Conflict management styles

This brings us to conflict management styles. We are social beings, and we start learning how to manage conflict very early in life often within our early families. In 1974, Kenneth W. Thomas and Ralph H. Kilmann introduced five different conflict styles that continue to be the preferred classification:

• Competing: I pursue my own position assertively, even at the expense of others, to win the conflict.
• Avoiding: I sidestep the conflict altogether, neither addressing my own concerns nor others’.
• Accommodating: I prioritize the other person’s needs over my own to preserve harmony.
• Compromising: We each give up something to reach a middle-ground solution.
• Collaborating: We work together to fully address both sides’ concerns and find a win-win outcome.

As a team leader, it’s important to be familiar with these styles and to observe both yourself and your team in how you communicate and react to conflict. While every style has its place and time when it is most useful, collaborating is usually the one to aim for in a high performing team, and leaders can model this for the rest of the team.

Another example of conflict debt

In a different situation, I once coached a team where one member consistently showed low productivity. Everyone noticed it, but no one named it. Most of the team had an accommodating, non-confrontational style, so they absorbed the extra work and hoped things would improve on their own. They didn’t.

The team fell behind, tension grew, and eventually the client became unhappy. What started as discomfort inside the team turned into a delivery and trust issue on the outside.

When they finally had the difficult conversation, something important happened. Expectations were made explicit. Goals were clarified. Support was offered. Performance improved, and the team recovered.

In our reflection, the insight was simple: even in high-performing teams, expectations drift. What was “obvious” to some is not always clear to everyone. Avoiding clarity is another form of conflict debt. Setting, and resetting, expectations is not a one-time event; it’s ongoing leadership work.

How to prevent conflict from accumulating

Preventing conflict debt is less about having perfect conversations and more about building consistent leadership habits. When teams know that tension, disagreement, and feedback are welcome, and expected, conflict is less likely to go underground and accumulate. Here is what you can do in your team to prevent conflict from accumulating:

• 1. Confront conflict directly and constructively
  Address issues early, while they are still small and specific. Direct doesn’t mean aggressive; it means naming what you see with respect and curiosity and inviting others to share their perspective before assumptions take over.
• 2. Make feedback a regular habit in your team
  Feedback should not be reserved for performance reviews or moments of frustration. When feedback flows frequently and in all directions, tough conversations feel less personal and more like part of the team’s normal way of working.
• 3. and reset expectations as needed
  Expectations naturally drift as teams grow, priorities change, and pressure increases. Team leaders reduce conflict debt by regularly checking for alignment and making implicit expectations explicit, even when things seem “obvious.”

In the long run, teams that prevent conflict debt are not those with less conflict, but those that have learned how to face it together.

Let’s slow down and listen

Conflict debt doesn’t show up all at once. It builds quietly, conversation by conversation, moment by moment. As a team leader, your role isn’t to eliminate conflict, but to make it safe, visible, and workable. When you slow down to listen, invite disagreement, and reset expectations, you’re not creating friction, you’re protecting trust, performance, and people. The teams that grow strongest aren’t the ones that avoid hard conversations, but the ones that learn to have them well.