Reduce Friction, Raise Alignment: Lead Beyond Positions

Last week, I published an audio episode on my podcast Life Acumen at Work titled “Stop Negotiating Your Position.”

In this episode, I want to share the coaching insights behind that idea - what it looks like in real conversations, why it quietly derails capable leaders, and a few practical shifts that can help you stay grounded when the discussion gets tense.

So here’s where I want to begin.

What struck me about this topic is how easily a difficult conversation can change shape - almost like accountability silently changing hands - without anyone noticing it.

It may begin as a discussion about a real issue - a decision, a constraint, a trade-off. But somewhere in the middle, it stops being about the issue itself. It becomes about who is going to move. Who is going to blink first.

And once that happens, the conversation has already become poorer.

The interesting thing here is that this happens to very capable people. In fact, it may happen more often to capable people because they are articulate, they are used to thinking clearly, and they can make a very good case for what they believe.

So someone enters a conversation with a view. The other person enters with another view. Both views may be reasonable. But once they are stated strongly enough, each side begins to feel slightly trapped by what they have already said.

And then the conversation becomes less about discovery and more like a courtroom—each side building a case.

A lot of people miss this. They assume negotiation becomes difficult because the other person is being unreasonable. Sometimes that is true. But often the difficulty comes from something more human. Once we have taken a position, we start to become attached to it.

Moving away from it does not feel like learning. It feels like losing face.

And that is where many leadership conversations get stuck.

The key takeaway for me is that what people ask for is often not the full story. A person may ask for a budget, a role, a timeline, a commitment, a concession. But beneath that ask there is usually something else - a worry, a pressure, a fear of failure, a need for control, a need to protect credibility, or sometimes just fatigue from having carried something for too long.

If you stay only with the stated demand, the conversation can start to feel like you’re looking through a narrow lens. It becomes your number against my number, your deadline against my deadline, your preference against mine.

But if you pause and ask what is really sitting underneath, the conversation can open up.

I guess the broader point is that many conflicts are not as fixed as they first appear. They become fixed because we are negotiating at the wrong level.

We are arguing about the outer form, when the real issue is somewhere beneath it.

What people are really carrying into the room is a concern - about consequence, control, reputation, what happens if things go wrong. The surface conversation is the tip of the iceberg; most of the weight sits below the waterline. And when that deeper concern stays unspoken, we keep negotiating the surface.

The words in the room may be about one thing. The real concerns may be about something quite different.

And unless those concerns are surfaced, the conversation becomes a contest of positions.

The mistake we often make is to confuse firmness with rigidity.

There are times when a leader must be firm. But rigidity is different. Rigidity is when the position becomes more important than the purpose behind it.

If you really think about it, the best leaders are often not the ones who never move. They are the ones who know what must not move.

Because they are clear about the core, they can be flexible about the form.

That, to me, is a more mature form of strength.

The only thing I would add is that this is not always easy to practise in the moment. In a tense conversation, the body reacts before the mind does. You can feel yourself becoming sharper. You can feel yourself wanting to prove the point. You can feel the internal pressure to not concede ground.

And that is the moment where a pause helps.

Not a dramatic pause. Just enough of a pause to ask yourself: what am I really trying to protect here?

Is it the outcome?
 Is it the principle?
 Is it the relationship?
 Is it my credibility?
 Or, is it simply the position I happened to take ten minutes ago?

That question is often more useful than we realise.

Even if the issue gets resolved, the residue remains. Every conversation leaves a kind of footprint. People remember whether they felt respected or felt cornered, dismissed, outmanoeuvred,—and that memory quietly echoes into the next conversation.

So one test I find useful is this: after this discussion is over, will the next conversation become easier or harder?

If the answer is harder, it may be worth asking if the way we are negotiating is costing more than we think.

I’m not saying there’s always a middle path. Sometimes the other side isn’t acting in good faith. Sometimes interests clash. And sometimes you have to hold the line.

But a lot of everyday leadership conflict is not in that category.

A lot of it comes from intelligent people becoming over-attached to the first version of what they said.

So here’s the small shift that makes a big difference: instead of asking, ‘How do I get them to agree with me?’ ask, ‘What are they trying to protect?’ And then ask yourself the same question.”

That one shift can change the emotional temperature of the room.

It does not guarantee agreement. But it often creates a better conversation. And many times, a better conversation is what makes a better agreement possible.

The key takeaway for me is this: in difficult conversations, we need to be careful about what we become loyal to.

We may think we are being loyal to the business, the team, the principle, or the outcome. But sometimes, without noticing it, we become loyal to our own stated position.

And that can be a costly loyalty.

Because the real work of leadership is not to defend every position we take. It is to stay close to what truly matters, and remain thoughtful about how we get there.

If this resonated, try it in your next tough conversation - and see what changes.

If you want the full audio version, listen to the episode “Stop Negotiating Your Position” on Life Acumen at Work - available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. 

I’ll see you in the next video with another practical insight from my coaching work with corporate leaders. Until then, stay firm on what matters - and stay flexible about how you get there.