The stakes are high for any founding team, so conflict should be expected, even encouraged. However, company culture is built on real reactions and interactions, not the values you put on the wall. If team members see co-founders or the leadership team getting heated and falling into unproductive fighting, that doesn’t set a respectful, growth-minded tone.
Luckily, it’s possible to repair this dynamic and do the work to learn how to navigate conflict in a healthy way. Ian Schmidt is a strategic adviser at Trimergence, a consultancy that coaches leaders to become more effective from the inside out. On a recent episode of Build Mode, Schmidt discussed how founders and teams need to update their personal operating systems.
