Leadership gets harder when smart people disagree.
Most teams are full of capable individuals who see the world differently and care deeply about outcomes. Those differences are often a strength, but they also surface competing perspectives, priorities, and instincts about what should happen next. When that happens, leaders face a quiet but consequential choice: smooth things over in the name of alignment, or create the conditions for disagreement to actually move the work forward.
That tension shows up everywhere, from executive and management teams to project groups trying to solve complex problems under pressure. Anywhere capable people are working on hard things together, the pull between harmony and progress is present.
This tension is not new. Long before modern leadership language existed, leaders were wrestling with the same underlying question of how to move people forward when certainty is impossible and agreement is unlikely.
At the risk of being a little nerdy, history offers us a useful lens here. The challenges change names and contexts, but the patterns stay remarkably consistent, and learning from the experience of others can help make sense of what we are facing right now.
One particularly instructive example comes from Abraham Lincoln and the cabinet he chose to build during the Civil War.
Lincoln intentionally surrounded himself with people who disagreed with him, including former political rivals and advisors who were unafraid to question his authority. His cabinet was divided, opinionated, and often uncomfortable by design. Rather than seeing that division as a liability, Lincoln understood it as energy that needed structure and direction if it was going to serve the broader mission.
That dynamic shows up clearly in his relationship with William H. Seward, who initially challenged Lincoln’s leadership and, at times, attempted to assert his own. Lincoln could have responded by tightening control or sidelining him. Instead, he redirected Seward’s ambition into meaningful responsibility, making expectations clear, defining authority, and keeping the larger purpose firmly in view. In doing so, Lincoln preserved both accountability and engagement.
What Lincoln did not offer his cabinet was certainty. That would have been unrealistic in the midst of a civil war, when outcomes were unclear, public sentiment shifted constantly, and information was often incomplete. What he did, though, was offer clarity: clarity about the mission they were serving, clarity about roles and responsibilities, and clarity about how disagreement would be handled without fracturing the group.
A mentor recently said something to me that really stuck: people crave certainty, but they will move for clarity.
Lincoln understood that people do not need all the answers to act. They need to understand what matters most, where they have agency, and how decisions will ultimately be made. That clarity allowed his cabinet to challenge one another openly without losing cohesion and to keep moving forward even when tensions ran high.
This is where things tend to slow down today. When leaders step in to help, decisions often move upward, and people start holding back rather than leaning in. No one is being difficult; they are just unsure where the lines are, and uncertainty naturally makes people cautious.
Lincoln’s cabinet offers a timely reminder that movement does not come from eliminating tension, but from giving tension structure and purpose.
When leaders provide clarity instead of chasing certainty, divided teams do not grind to a halt. Instead, they move forward with intention.
At The Encompass Group, we help leaders turn tension into momentum by creating clarity where certainty isn’t possible. If your team is stuck between alignment and action, let’s talk about how to transform disagreement into progress.
Connect with us today to explore strategies that move people forward with purpose at hello@theencompassgroup.com.
Written by Robert Rich, SPHR, SHRM-SCP, Vice President of Transformational Consulting at The Encompass Group