leading through conflict
Master Productive Conflict for High-Performing Teams
Conflict isn't the problem—avoiding it is. Our Leading Through Conflict Workshop is based on Patrick Lencioni's model of productive conflict and uses personality assessments to help teams understand their comfort with conflict and embrace spirited debate as essential to great decisions. Through interactive exercises and facilitated practice, teams learn that productive conflict—passionate, unfiltered debate about ideas—is necessary for innovation, better decisions, and genuine team alignment.
Participants work through assessments exploring their own relationship with conflict and practice engaging in the kind of healthy debate that strengthens trust rather than damages it. Using Lencioni's framework, teams discover how to separate productive conflict (debate about ideas) from destructive conflict (personal attacks). Through hands-on activities and real scenarios, leaders and team members practice passionate advocacy for their ideas, learn to disagree productively, and experience how spirited debate leads to better outcomes than artificial harmony.
Most teams avoid conflict to maintain artificial harmony—and suffer from mediocre decisions as a result. This leadership development workshop creates permission and skills for productive disagreement. Through guided practice and facilitated dialogue, participants learn to engage in robust debate about concepts and plans without making it personal. Teams leave understanding that conflict, when done well, is a sign of health and trust—not dysfunction. You'll gain practical skills for spirited debate that drives innovation and commitment, not politics and resentment.
what participants learn
Productive vs. Destructive Conflict – Understand Lencioni's model distinguishing healthy debate from personal attacks
Conflict Comfort Assessment – Discover your personal relationship with conflict through interactive assessments
Spirited Debate Skills – Practice passionate advocacy for ideas through facilitated exercises and role-plays
Productive Disagreement – Engage in healthy conflict through guided practice without making it personal
Building Trust Through Conflict – Learn how productive conflict strengthens rather than damages relationships
Team Permission for Debate – Create norms and agreements that encourage spirited debate about ideas
why it works
✓ Based on Lencioni's proven Five Dysfunctions model used by thousands of teams
✓ Personality assessments reveal individual comfort with conflict and debate styles
✓ Interactive exercises create safe practice for spirited debate and disagreement
✓ Reframes conflict as necessary and healthy rather than something to avoid
✓ Builds skills for passionate advocacy without personal attacks through practice
✓ Creates team culture where robust debate drives better decisions and innovation
who benefits
Teams experiencing artificial harmony or surface-level agreement, leadership teams avoiding difficult conversations, organizations where politics trump honest debate, teams that need permission for spirited disagreement, and any group ready to embrace productive conflict as essential to great decisions and genuine commitment through practiced, assessment-based learning.
Bold, practical, and transformative—this workshop makes spirited debate a competitive advantage through Lencioni's proven framework.