Restoring team balance when one perspective dominates

By Sandra Oliver, Impact Founder

In our last insight, we examined what can happen when one leader’s reality dominates a team dynamic. The negative impacts it can have on the rest of the leadership team and the culture of the organization overall. And how teams can start recognizing this dynamic, and take simple steps to build a more positive and constructive way forward.

Today, we look at several strategies leaders can use to reverse this complex leadership team dynamic. How we can apply a more structured approach to communicating and building strong relationships, encourage multiple perspectives, avoid the pitfalls that can lead to more issues, and what we can do as leaders to help benefit the team and organization overall.

Create places where the team can safely test reality

For a healthier team, create settings where people can say what they see without being punished for it. A useful practice is to ask each person on the team, separately and then together:

• What do you see happening?
• What are you worried others aren’t seeing?
• What do you think we’re avoiding?
• What do you think your own part may be?
• What would someone who disagrees with you say?
• What evidence would change your mind?

Look for the missing voices

When one person’s reality dominates, we’re usually missing perspectives from the people who are quiet, have less formal power, see the operational consequences, and the ones whom others confide in, have stopped trying, or are afraid of being punished for saying what everyone knows.

Take the time to observe and ask: whose reality is not being represented here? Because when only the most forceful voice is heard, the team loses intelligence. And often, the people who are most hesitant to speak are the ones who can describe the system most clearly.

Watch out for conversation triangles

Reality shifts faster when people talk indirectly. One person speaks to a third person about a second person, and the third person absorbs the anxiety, validates the story, softens the message, or carries it elsewhere. Soon, the system is full of side conversations, which is how false or harmful narratives spread.

In small senior teams, triangles are especially dangerous because there are so few people, and one or two side conversations can change the emotional field of the whole organization.

To help prevent this unhelpful dynamic, we need to be disciplined about turning indirect conversations back into direct ones. A useful question is: “Is this a conversation you need to have with X?” Or: “What part of this can I help you raise directly?” Or: “I don’t want to become the place where this relationship gets managed indirectly.” All are boundaries that help protect the system.

How we can respond as leaders

If we sense that one reality is starting to run the team, we shouldn’t move too quickly to confrontation. Instead, we should write down what we know to be true. Then what we think may be true. Followed by what we do not know. This sounds basic, but it helps us recover our judgment.

Next, we can seek perspective from people who aren’t dependent on the dominant narrative, like an external adviser, coach, board member, or trusted peer outside the system, and ask them to challenge our thinking.

Then, we can bring more structure to the team conversation, by naming the pattern without accusing anyone. For example: “I think we may be moving too quickly from events to conclusions.” Or: “I’m concerned that one interpretation of the situation is becoming dominant before we’ve tested it.” Or: “I want us to distinguish between performance issues, relationship issues, and assumptions about intent.”

All while insisting on specificity: What happened? When? Who was involved? What was the impact? What alternative explanations have we considered? What do we need to decide? What’s the process for deciding?

This kind of structure reduces the power of charisma, fear, and whoever can frame the situation most convincingly, and focuses the conversation on what the team can responsibly know and do.