Leadership development often emphasizes techniques and frameworks, yet something essential remains unexplored: we are always in relationship, even when we think we're just managing outcomes. The quality of those relationships—the degree to which we can stay connected to each other's humanity—shapes everything that emerges.
The Patterns That Pull Us Apart
Gregory Bateson understood this when he studied schismogenesis—how minor differences between people can escalate into relationship-destroying patterns through interaction. In organizations, we see this constantly: the micromanaging leader whose control creates the exact passivity they fear, the competing teams whose rivalry becomes more important than the work itself, the colleagues who become increasingly rigid in their positions until collaboration becomes impossible.
What Bateson revealed is that these aren't personality conflicts or strategic disagreements. They're structures we create together—sometimes unconsciously, sometimes through habits we've fallen into despite knowing better—patterns that emerge from our interactions and then trap us in increasingly narrow ways of relating. The controlling manager isn't a bad person, nor is the resistant employee. They're caught in a dynamic that brings out defensive responses on both sides.
But here's what's both heartbreaking and hopeful about this insight: if we're co-creating these patterns, we can also interrupt them. The question is whether we have the courage to do so when everything around us—deadlines, expectations, competitive pressures—seems to reward the familiar responses. And whether we're willing to risk responding in ways that might feel unfamiliar, that challenge how we see ourselves or how we think others see us, when it feels vulnerable to invite in a new way of engaging.
That Moment
There's a moment in every escalating dynamic when we feel the familiar script starting to play. Your colleague uses that tone. Your direct report gives you that look. The meeting is heading toward the same unproductive territory you've visited too many times before.
In that moment, we have a choice that most leadership development never addresses: Do we follow the script that feels so justified, necessary, and obviously right—or do we risk staying present to the person in front of us?
This isn't about being nice or avoiding difficult conversations. It's about recognizing that the person across from you is also carrying weight—their fears about failing, their own pressure to prove themselves worthy, their own exhaustion from trying so hard.
When we can hold that awareness even in moments of conflict, even when we're sure we're right, something different becomes possible.
The Radical Act of Seeing
Operating from this more profound humanity, when organizational culture rewards speed, certainty, and individual achievement, requires what can only be called courage. It means being willing to be vulnerable when others are positioning for advantage. It means choosing curiosity about someone's experience when you could choose being right about your position.
This isn't naive idealism. It's the most pragmatic approach to sustainable leadership because it addresses the root of many organizational problems: the erosion of trust when people stop seeing each other as fully human.
When we operate from assumptions and stories about others' motivations—when we reduce our colleagues to their roles, their last mistake, or their department's agenda—we create the disconnection that makes collaboration impossible. But when we can interrupt those assumptions with genuine curiosity and ask "What's really at stake for you here?" instead of defending our position, we create space for something new to emerge.
Learning to Notice
Operating from this deeper humanity when organizational culture rewards speed, certainty, and individual achievement requires a deeper level of awareness in order to access humility and courage. It means being willing to be vulnerable when others are positioning for advantage. It means choosing curiosity about someone's experience when you could choose being right about your position.
It's easy to dismiss this as too idealistic for the real world, but it's actually the most pragmatic approach to sustainable leadership because it addresses something fundamental: how do we attune to each other's needs when trust has been damaged? How do we create a way forward when relationships have become strained or disconnected?
When we operate from assumptions and stories about others' motivations—when we reduce our colleagues to their roles or their last mistake or their department's agenda—we participate in creating the very disconnection that makes collaboration impossible. But when we can interrupt those assumptions with genuine curiosity, when we can ask "What's really at stake for you here?" instead of defending our position, we create space for something new to emerge.
When the Stakes Are High
The real test comes when the pressure is most intense—when the project is behind schedule, when trust between teams has eroded, when people are questioning their leadership, when jobs are on the line. That's when the temptation to fall back into familiar patterns is strongest, when treating people as resources or obstacles feels most justified.
But perhaps that's exactly when this approach matters most. When the stakes are high and everyone is feeling the stress, the choice to remember the humanity of the people around you becomes something deeply transformational. It opens possibilities that weren't there before—it allows us to see solutions we couldn't see when we were caught in familiar patterns, to find ways forward that honor what everyone truly needs.
The Invitation
This isn't about becoming a perfect leader or eliminating all conflict from your workplace. It's about recognizing that leadership, at its core, is a relational practice. It's about understanding that the patterns we create together either serve our shared humanity or diminish it.
The invitation is to notice the opportunities in your own leadership—the moments when you can either follow the familiar script or risk staying connected to the person in front of you. To experiment with bringing conscious intention to the relationships that shape your work, even when the organizational culture doesn't explicitly value this approach.
Because ultimately, the quality of our relationships determines the quality of everything else we're trying to co-create together. And in a world that often feels increasingly divided, the choice to see and honor each other's humanity isn't just good leadership—it's an expression of love.
Ways to Practice
Notice Your Internal Script
When you feel tension rising in an interaction, pause and ask yourself: "What story am I telling myself about this person's intentions right now?" We often operate from assumptions about why someone is behaving a certain way, rather than being present to what's happening.
Ask a Different Question
Instead of "How do I get them to understand my point?" try "What's really at stake for this person I might not be seeing?" This shift moves you from trying to convince to genuinely seeking to understand what matters to them.
Interrupt the Pattern with Curiosity
When you recognize you're in a familiar dynamic (the same argument, the same defensive responses), experiment with saying something like "I notice we keep ending up in this same place. What do you think is happening here?" This names the pattern without blame and invites collaborative exploration.
Reflective Prompt: What would become possible in your organization if more leaders chose connection over being right? Share your comments.
There is much here. Whether we think of Martin Buber's I-Thou relationships or the Arbinger Insitute's Outward Mindset, getting over ourselves and engaging otherness with humility, presence and curiousity is so essential to leadership.
I love this take. It can be a hard pill to swallow sometimes but everything about our daily lives is a collection and reflection of the dynamics we create and maintain with other people. Relationships and the ways that they position us and the patterns and cycles they create define our success and failure at home and at work. The scary part is that even unhealthy dynamics become comfortable- but like you said, we can interrupt them. I hope we do.