How Do I Co-Lead with a Challenging Partner?

MURIEL WILKINS: I’m Muriel Wilkins, and this is Coaching Real Leaders, part of the HBR Podcast Network. I’m a long-time executive coach who works with highly successful leaders who’ve hit a bump in the road. My job is to help them get over that bump by clarifying their goals and figuring out a way to reach them so that hopefully they can lead with a little more ease.

I typically work with clients over the course of several months, but on this show we have a one-time coaching meeting focusing on a specific leadership challenge they’re facing. Today’s guest is someone we’ll call Stephan to protect his confidentiality. He’s in a leadership role that he finds both interesting and challenging.

STEPHAN: It’s dealing with people, ultimately. It’s resolving problems. It’s making impact on completely different area. Not solving clients’ internal or external problems with whatever kind of design, but with dealing with people with emotions, with conflicts and trying to resolve it, trying to find common grounds, contributing in a really different way. This is my, I would say, first serious… Not that previous leading roles were not serious, but this one is most serious. More serious. Let’s say the team is bigger and the challenges are bigger.

MURIEL WILKINS: Stephan reached out because while he likes many aspects of his position, he’s having trouble co-leading a project with a partner who happens to be external to the company. We’ll start by getting a bit more of the lay of the land to better understand the issue he’s facing.

STEPHAN: I am experiencing something that I would call like dual leadership challenge. I am internal manager at my company, and this company has an external agency that is asked to complete the project. This agency has a very skilled and really great product lead who is basically in the same role as I am. So we have the situation of literally dual leadership, and in some moments this leads to misunderstandings.

It’s a little bit conflict of authority, like who actually rides the car, who wears pants in this relationship. It’s been really difficult to me to navigate. And additional flavor to it is what you usually meet from stakeholders is just constant criticism because people never like stuff. I mean, they say, “Yeah, it’s nice, but if we make this button green or if we make this button red, what do you think?”

And part of you has to be made of stone that you deal with this negative feedback. And it’s often just negative for being negative, but they cannot give you actual argument. Then you give them 20 arguments and then they say, “Ah, okay. Yeah, you’re right.” So that’s additional challenge to it. And there is yet another layer I would say. My counterpart, he has a very strong personality.

I believe I am a strong personality too, but in a different way. I am more influencer so that in span of time I can build coalition and convince people to my view, while my partner is just saying what he thinks and that’s the right idea, that’s the right direction, and here we go, which is not my approach to life in general. So that’s another layer of challenge.

MURIEL WILKINS: I like the way that you framed this in terms of under the umbrella of dual leadership. And under that umbrella, there’s a couple of components, or what I’m hearing as, correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m sort of hearing them as pain points for you, right?

STEPHAN: Yeah. Yes.

MURIEL WILKINS: One being, as you put it, who wears the pants in this relationship, right? There’s a little bit of conflict of authority, like who’s in charge. The second being the notion of just design and the tension that’s held there in terms of it being a place where everybody has an opinion, and how do you get through those? And by the way, I’m probably very guilty of being the person who’s like, “Oh, I don’t like that color. Can you turn it green?” Because I think I know something about design. Literally I feel seen when you said that, and I will try better next time.

STEPHAN: It’s nothing bad in that. It’s nothing bad.

MURIEL WILKINS: But I’m holding empathy for the person who just redesigned my website because literally they went through weeks of me being that way. So thank you for that.

STEPHAN: We have first successful discussion.

MURIEL WILKINS: And then the other part that I’m hearing as a pain point is just a difference in two different types of strong personality. I see it as two different approaches that the two of you have. Does that sort of describe what you are experiencing?

STEPHAN: Yes. Yes, exactly. That’s it. Yeah.

MURIEL WILKINS: Okay. And on a scale from one to 10, with one being I feel it a little bit, when you go to the doctor, they’re like, how bad does it hurt? One is I kind of feel it, but it’s not a big deal. 10 is like, oh my gosh, excruciating. We need to operate now, doctor. Where are you on these pain points collectively? What does it feel like right now?

STEPHAN: Collectively?

MURIEL WILKINS: Yeah.

STEPHAN: Five point something, so not really that bad.

MURIEL WILKINS: Okay. All right. Is there one pain point that is sorer than the other?

STEPHAN: One and three are the drivers.

MURIEL WILKINS: Okay. So the conflict of authority and the difference in personality approaches.

STEPHAN: Yes.

MURIEL WILKINS: Okay. And where would you put those?

STEPHAN: I would say who’s in charge, it’s eight-ish, and personalities may be a little less like seven, but also it is maybe we don’t need to operate now, but certainly we need antibiotics.

MURIEL WILKINS: Yeah, you need antibiotics. I hear you. And I’m just asking because I want to gauge. I’m not in your body. I’m not sitting in your chair. I don’t know how you’re experiencing this, but it gives me a level of how you’re experiencing it, what it feels like to you. So help me understand what dual leadership means to you.

STEPHAN: So on the one hand is who makes the final decision, actually what we do. If we have three competing ideas, who makes the final decision? Who is accountable? Who takes the responsibility? Or maybe these are two different things. Who makes decision and who is responsible? Because from people who are internal in our organization, I’m hearing that I am accountable for this design stuff, which is right to certain point.

But on the other hand, sometimes and very often these decisions are not taken by myself. And these decisions just happen, which sometimes I’m informed. Sometimes I have to dig very deep to learn that decisions were made. So the level of actual execution for one and two I would say for responsibility.

MURIEL WILKINS: And when you talk about execution and responsibility, help me clarify the difference between the two. You said execution and you said responsibility. When you’re talking about responsibility, it’s responsibility for what? And how is that different than being responsible for the execution?

STEPHAN: In execution, I mean that who makes the actual decision that this button should be blue or green. Of course, everyone has opinion, but which opinion is the major one? Which opinion we use? What’s the right solution? And as you may imagine in the design, I mean, there are better solutions and worse solutions, but there is no Bible that says, “Do this. Don’t do that.”

And the other thing is actual responsibility. So taking responsibility for the entire product that is happening, whether this will work or not in longer perspective. So if we’ll lose 20% customers over three years because of these little bricks of these decisions that were made beyond my control, I would be accountable that we lose these customers because of these pain points. Is this clear?

MURIEL WILKINS: It was clear from the beginning. It was just more having to me understand it. I’m positive you were being very clear. So when I asked you what does dual leadership mean to you, you pointed out this notion of who makes the final decision, who’s responsible, who’s accountable. And you were very quick, which I think is important to discern between maybe there’s a difference between responsibility and accountability and even decision-making and accountability.

The level of execution we just spoke about. And these are all parameters around the different scopes of leadership, particularly around a project or a deliverable. To what extent is the person that you’re co-leading with, and I know he’s not here, so I want to be fair, so this isn’t more from your perspective, to what extent if he were here, if I asked him what his definition of dual leadership is, would it be similar or different than yours?

STEPHAN: I think there is no dual leadership in his world.

MURIEL WILKINS: Okay.

STEPHAN: So officially he’s the leader. End of the story.

MURIEL WILKINS: According to him is how you experience it.

STEPHAN: Yeah.

MURIEL WILKINS: Okay. And so what gives you that sense using the same frame that you gave me around decision-making, accountability, responsibility, et cetera?

STEPHAN: It’s because of simply of the amount of decisions taken. 78 or 85% of decisions are made by him, sometimes including my view, sometimes not, which it’s fine.

MURIEL WILKINS: What makes it fine?

STEPHAN: Having different opinions. I mean, that’s what I mean only on this very exclusive meaning that having different opinions is fine.

MURIEL WILKINS: I mean, I’m asking because on the one hand you said, “Oh, he’s making decisions on his own and that’s not dual leadership.” But then as you explained it, you said, “Oh, but I guess it’s fine.” So I’m just asking what are you fine with and what are you not fine with?

STEPHAN: Sorry, sorry. So no, yeah, I’m fine with having different views and having my advice being taken into account or not, because that’s the nature of the job. What is not okay is these decisions are made without me. I was not there. And at first, yes, some time ago I thought it’s maybe only the case of communication, but it’s not the case of communication. It’s for me the statement of power, who really leads the project. So this is just one project that I’m responsible for. There are other projects where I take my decisions, where I am leading, and that’s fine.

MURIEL WILKINS: Yeah. Stephan, what I’m sitting with right now is, again, there was a reason I latched onto dual leadership, which I’m imagining dual is co-leading. There’s two people leading. And that’s the intent or the way this project is structured. And you said the issue is that the power seems to only lie with one in terms of making the decision. So what are we solving for here? And let me give you a couple of options. Are we solving for who should make the decision? It has to be one or the other. Or are we solving for what does decision making look like in a dual leadership structure?

STEPHAN: Point two.

MURIEL WILKINS: Point two? Okay. Why do you say… And I’m not saying one is better than the other. I’m just saying there’s different ways of approaching it. So tell me why point two for you?

STEPHAN: I think that what we have, what is given is the situation as it is. And of course, we can spend energy and time to try to get rid of him. I mean, that’s valid option too, right? But it’s really not what I would like to do. So if that’s the structure that organization thinks works fine, I have my opinion on that, that it’s not the best option, which has been voiced, which has been heard, and that’s it.

So I feel that I have to just deal with that, that that’s the given situation. And either I give up and everything is in his hands and then I am accountable for whatever errors or successes happen, or I just pull myself together and just try to do something and contribute to this decision-making process in dual leadership situation.

MURIEL WILKINS: So I think I have a picture of what it would look like to just say, “You know what? I’m just going to let this person make the decisions. Let me say a prayer and hope that it all works out for the best. Inshallah, right? Or/and the other scenario that you’re proposing is, okay, is there a way that I can actually try to contribute to these decisions?

STEPHAN: Yes.

MURIEL WILKINS: So, if you followed the way of trying to contribute to the decisions, what have you tried so far, before we try to figure out what you could do, and if you should? What have you tried so far on that realm?

STEPHAN: Make an opinion, to have an opinion. To have an opinion, that’s one thing. What have I tried? Yeah, that’s the question. Because on the one hand I feel I tried everything, but when you tell me, so give me five items on this list of everything, the sheet is empty.

MURIEL WILKINS: I appreciate the honesty here.

STEPHAN: What I’ve done, literally everything, basically. So, my strategy, it seems it was just not having any strategy, just trying to be just yet another person who comes and says, change this button to red.

MURIEL WILKINS: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Okay. So, you are meeting it by saying, hey, let me just make sure my voice is heard.

STEPHAN: Mm-hmm.

MURIEL WILKINS: All right, let’s pause for a moment. We’ve heard Stephan lay out his dual leadership dilemma, sharing the reins of a design project with an outside partner, never quite knowing who’s steering. He’s grappling with unclear decision rights, feeling the pull of two different personalities, and wondering where he fits in when the authority feels uneven. What I’m noticing is how these elements weave together, foggy accountability, imbalanced power, and overlapping styles. It’s like watching two voices trying to harmonize without a written score, things get noisy and the melody falters. And Stephan is also realizing that he’s gotten bogged down by the frustration of working in this way, and as a result hasn’t done much to try to resolve it, and that it was now time to try something different. But before he can do that, we have to further identify where the breakdown is happening between him and his co-lead, otherwise his actions may be misdirected. That’s where we pick things back up, taking a closer look at where Stephan and his partner are out of sync.

There’s a couple of things here, right? I think whenever there’s a breakdown in a partnership, or in a team, or a relational, work relational piece, there are many variables to look at. But two of the ones that I think are helpful to look at to start with, to try to understand where the breakdown is, is it a content breakdown, meaning there’s misalignment around what we’re dealing with, or is it a process breakdown? And the process breakdown is the how. Like, yes, we both understand that this is the deliverable that needs to be met, that’s the content, there’s other parts of content that we can talk about, and then the process breakdown is, but there is dissonance, misalignment on the how, how we’re going to get there. And when it comes to decision making, decision making does consist of both of those variables. What are we making a decision on? That’s the content. And how are we getting to that decision? That’s the process.

And so, whenever… By the way, I face this all the time, it doesn’t even have work. Think about every time I can think about my own life, I think I live this every single day with some of the people in my household. But I thought this was going to happen, no, that was going to happen, you can peel back the onion and say, well, where was the misalignment? And so, when you look at this particular co-leadership structure, or co-leadership whatever we want to call it, where is the misalignment?

STEPHAN: So, basically, the misalignment is more, I would say, in the how, more in the process.

MURIEL WILKINS: More in the process. Okay.

STEPHAN: Whatever happens, his position has end, so his contractor. So, whatever happens in one year, two years, five years, four years, he’ll be gone because the contract is done. So, the problem will just cease to exist on its own. But I certainly don’t want to wait to this moment, I just want to do something about that. But within this framework, what and how it’s, I would say, 70 to 30% on the how.

MURIEL WILKINS: Mm-hmm. So, we’ll talk a little bit about that. So, you’re feeling it in the how. I also sense based on what you just said, that there is that 20 to 30% on the what, because, as you put it, when the contract is over for the contractor, they’re out of here, right?

STEPHAN: Yes.

MURIEL WILKINS: They’re not held accountable for what happens, as you put it, three to four years from now. And so, there’s a question for me around is there true alignment around what success looks like for the project? Not just in the short term, but in the long term, which is a content question.

STEPHAN: That’s really, really the point, because I perceive it that this is maybe not the conflict of interest, but his organization has its goals and my organization has its own goals. And in this project I feel we have different goals. So, there is this misalignment, but it’s like three steps back. So, their goal is to be as long as possible with us because we support them, and we want to get rid of them as soon as possible because they’re pure costs. Yeah? Investment in a sense, but at this point, today, huge cost. So, yes, let me change it to 35, 40.

MURIEL WILKINS: Yeah. It’s a little bit of both, right? And it often is, but I think-

STEPHAN: But still more of how, I would say, still a little more of how.

MURIEL WILKINS: Yeah. And I think what you pointed out around the green button, and it’s really multi-layers down where the dissonance is, what’s interesting is when there is that misalignment, whether it’s around the goals, as you put it, the long-term goals, the how, the way that it manifests itself is in the green buttons. Instead of talking about, oh my goodness, we’re actually not aligned around the goals, or we’re not aligned around process, we talk about should it be a green or a blue button, because it’s easier to grasp on, or we boil it down to, I’m going to go back to the beginning of our conversation, we boil it down to, it’s a difference in personalities.

STEPHAN:

Yeah.

MURIEL WILKINS: Okay, because that’s easier to point to. So, I think really the question here is, is there any opportunity to get greater alignment with this individual, so that it increases the score of dual leadership? Because one thing I know for sure when you are dealing with dual leadership, co-leadership, alignment is paramount. And alignment does not mean that there cannot be differences. There can be differences, all it means is that there is some intersection. So, when you point out their organizational goals are to keep the job, your organizational goals is to put them out of a job, those are the differences, but then where’s the intersection? Where’s the commonality? And can we find common ground there? If it exists.

Because as long as there is not something that exists that anchors the two of you together, where you can actually build the foundation of trust that, hey, at the end of the day, I know that we are both working towards this common goal, and we have that common goal in the best interest, there’s always going to be this feeling of divergent leadership rather than dual leadership. So, I just said a lot, let me pause there and see how that sits with you.

STEPHAN: Yeah. To be completely honest, that’s the moment that I desire from this conversation, that you really framed it as the case of trust that is behind everything, and it’s the foundation of everything. So, trust, yeah, it’s one thing. I tried to read some books on it, and just to also try to think of it, like from my perspective, what actually can I do? And I came across a book collaborating with enemy. Not that he’s enemy. And it’s super insightful that, yeah, you can have a conflict, you don’t have to resolve conflict, you can just have different views, and that’s fine. And even if that’s the way to collaborate with enemy, that’s okay, and that was a really eye-opening experience because I realized it really doesn’t have to be the actual driver, that’s fine.

And now, what you said, having this fundamental alignment based on trust is something that would really allow to have this dual and not divergent approach to it. Because ultimately we have a common goal. So, actually, maybe a solution would be really to focus on just delivering this. I know it sounds cliche, but that’s the point, just to deliver this thing, and maybe when we deliver and the project is finished, then we just seize the conflict.

MURIEL WILKINS:

Yeah, that’s certainly one way to go about it, right? In terms of what do you need to have trust on? What does the range of the common goal need to be? We’re not asking, you’re not making lifelong vows with this person, that-

STEPHAN: Correct.

MURIEL WILKINS: It’s not about that. But I do think there’s a question around what are you contracting around? And that’s not clear to me. And it’s okay, it doesn’t matter, I don’t judge it. It could be, hey, all I need, I just need enough trust to get through this project. Or these contracts are going to be around for a while, there’s going to be the next project, next project, I want to make sure that we are building a relationship or rapport, a working relationship, where we can continue to get through without all these pain points that I’m feeling. But you have to scope it out, what’s the scope? And then you have to ensure that this individual who’s working, not even on the other side, but side by side with you, also understands that that’s the scope, that’s the alignment.

STEPHAN: Exactly. That’s right.

MURIEL WILKINS: Yeah.

STEPHAN: That’s right. And only now this [inaudible 00:27:41] that run away from me came back. So, this just a additional background information that he is almost two years longer in the project than myself. So, he’s organically more knowledgeable about all the kitchen of the project, of all people working, they are his colleagues from previous projects. So, I was new in the situation, so it took me some time to really pave my way into this society.

MURIEL WILKINS: And just for context, Stephan, was he leading on his own before you arriving or did he-

STEPHAN: Yeah.

MURIEL WILKINS: He was. Okay.

STEPHAN: Yeah, my post was empty.

MURIEL WILKINS: Okay. So, I want to, because I think this is helpful in terms of figuring out alignment, I want you to put yourself in his shoes right now, put yourself in his shoes. What do you think is driving why he’s operating the way he is?

STEPHAN: At first, I would say just a very strong directive personality approach to everything. By everything, I mean whenever we go to, whatever, team building events, that he has the right opinion on, what should we do, when, and how. I just follow, I don’t care really that much, so that’s fine. But I think it’s just construction of personality at first. Wants to be smartest person in the room, to be sure that you are recognized for doing the best, stuff like that.

MURIEL WILKINS: So, those are all possibilities of what might be driving it, right? And I’m going to add one more, which is, he was the sole leader, so he was the sole decision maker, he was the one who was responsible, and I would assume to a certain extent, accountable, he was the only one who had to decide whether it was the green button or the blue button, and all of a sudden here you come on board.

STEPHAN: Correct.

MURIEL WILKINS: It reminds me of my sister, who is four years older than me. And I love her. We get along greatly. I have to preface this before I tell this story. But she tells a story about when I was born. She was like, “This is the worst day of my life.”

STEPHAN: Oh my gosh.

MURIEL WILKINS: Because up until then, guess what? She held that place of being the youngest in the family and all the things that come with that. And that position was then taken away.

STEPHAN: That might hurt, indeed.

MURIEL WILKINS: It might, it might not. But here’s the thing: I’m curious about whether he ever redefined what his position is in a dual leadership role and whether you defined what yours is in a dual leadership role. Did you all ever sit and define? And maybe you have. I don’t know.

STEPHAN: No, we haven’t.

MURIEL WILKINS: Okay. When we don’t define what the future needs to look like, what do we do? What do we tend to do?

STEPHAN: I think the basic idea was that I am also. But as I said, it’s one of the projects. So I am responsible, accountable for everything else and this one, and he sits on this one. I think because I also don’t know.

MURIEL WILKINS: Yeah.

STEPHAN: I really feel exposed.

MURIEL WILKINS: Exposed. We both are, together. How about that? You exposed me on my design choices earlier. Okay. So what now? Let’s just take a pause here because I just want to hear from what you’re hearing, because I think you’re having some new level of awareness. What are some things that are in your control that you think you could… I don’t want to talk about the future just yet. That you think you could’ve done when you became co-lead, when it took this new structure? What are some of the things that are in your control that you think you could have done to try to increase the chances of there being an improved dual leadership experience? Not guarantee. Just increase the chances.

STEPHAN: Now I’m thinking that, in fact, basically I did nothing. Yeah. There was no one single meeting with my leadership, his leadership, him and me, just to sit and just write on piece of paper basically who does what. For instance, it was just we dived into stuff, into doing, doing, doing, doing, doing things.

MURIEL WILKINS: Yeah.

STEPHAN: So that was really this first sin committed by Adam and Eve. So I think that could have been the issue. That’s never been defined.

MURIEL WILKINS: But in the spirit of the first sin committed by Adam and Eve, there was such a thing as grace and reconciliation.

STEPHAN: Yes.

MURIEL WILKINS: I know enough. My mother would be very proud of me right now. So with that in mind, I mean look, I think if we want to get tactical here, I think you’ve pinned it. You went straight into doing without pulling back and saying, “Okay, what’s the plan? What’s the goal? What are the expectations here?” That’s the content part. And then what’s the how? And the how are things like, what’s our decision making process? You can use a tool, and you can look that up after our session, but use a tool like RACI. Mapping out who’s responsible, accountable, who needs to be consulted, who needs to be informed.

And what those types of conversations, and as you said, putting pen to paper does is it helps make the assumptions explicit so that then it can be discussed. If the assumptions are not the same. At least then you know what you’re disagreeing on, right?

STEPHAN: Correct. That’s the point, yeah.

MURIEL WILKINS: And you have guardrails. And here’s the thing: yes, you could just wait this person out. You could say, “You know what? Whatever the time period is, they’ll be gone and pain points will be relieved.” I guarantee you, Stephan, it will be a temporary relief because this notion of getting alignment with others is part of leadership. It’s just showing up in this particular contractor right now. But you will have other moments in your career where alignment is necessary, whether it be with your team, whether it be with peers, whether it be with your boss, whether it be with clients, whether it be with one other contractor.

STEPHAN: If you would ask me at the beginning of our conversation, on a scale of one to 10, what I think about alignment, I would say 12. So on theoretical level, that, I would put it as really the motto, the tagline, the first and most important thing. But when it actually came to do actual alignments, when we started collaboration, it didn’t happen.

MURIEL WILKINS: Now that we’ve unpacked Stephan’s story, a few things have come into focus. First, his frustration over who really calls the shots isn’t just a clash of styles. It’s a signal of deeper misalignment. And that misalignment, it traces back to the moment he first stepped into this role. It’s an important detail that we only got to once the conversation was well on its way, and it’s a dynamic that happens often because when teams reshuffle or new leaders come on board, we rarely hit the pause button to redefine who owns what.

Instead, we expect a productive dynamic to magically take shape. But the reality is, without an explicit conversation about decision rights, those tensions quietly simmer and the same issues keep resurfacing and even get worse over time. Now it’s time to explore how Stephan can move forward. Yes, he could simply wait and hope things improve on their own, but that feels unsustainable in the long run. Instead, we’ll look at the choices. He now has to reshape this dual leadership dynamic into one that’s more functional than it is today. So what do you think? Again, going back to your lane and what you can be 100% responsible for, because somebody could say, “Well, nobody else did it.” But they’re not sitting here. You’re sitting here.

And so I want to focus on what you contribute and can contribute moving forward to this dynamic, acknowledging that you’re not 100% responsible for the dynamic, but you are 50% responsible. And so with your 50%, where does this leave you in terms of what you think you can do moving forward?

STEPHAN: What I’m thinking now is the first thing I will not do or I would not like to do. I have to say, “Hey, man. Let’s sit together. Let’s make a new start. So let’s maybe not forget about the past or whatever. Just let’s sit and do it.” I would not like to do it because that would really look fake. Not honest, and also not in accordance with my true North compass. Yeah?

MURIEL WILKINS: Mm-hmm.

STEPHAN: So that wouldn’t be my goal. Just to think of some gradual tactics, how to smuggle these ideas into daily collaboration. And I think like 80% of success would be to have the structure in mind that it’s about what, how, and this trust that anchors both of us. And I think having this in mind is really 80% of the solution. And knowing, what is my 50% of influence, of power, in this? And 50% is actually a lot. Right?

MURIEL WILKINS: Mm-hmm.

STEPHAN: So basically the knowledge, the awareness. Awareness is the key to it.

MURIEL WILKINS: Yeah. And awareness is important. Awareness plus action is unstoppable. So how do you envision your awareness will turn into action? As a result of this awareness, what action do you think you’ll take?

STEPHAN: I’m thinking maybe what I just cannot resist is to think operationally, in actionable items, meaning I invent whatever, a new idea. New project, new tool, or a new approach to things we do. And just go to him and say, “Hey, here is my idea.” I mean like bigger idea. “Come on. Let’s do it.” And I will be the owner of this whatever, idea. That would certainly satisfy this appetite for ownership and responsibility. Maybe this would show that my contribution is not only opinion but actual action. This would also be opportunity to reverse the situation so that he would be forced, would be exposed to react to what is happening, because currently I am the one reacting to what is happening in most cases. Yeah? So this flipping the coin, maybe.

MURIEL WILKINS: Yeah, flipping the coin. And the way that you’re describing it, Stephan, what’s coming up for me is the approach that you’re suggesting, it’s almost like a dance where you basically switch positions with him and so… but that doesn’t mean the dance changes. Okay?

The waltz is the waltz is the waltz. But that’s the question, is do both of you think you’re doing the waltz? And we still haven’t gotten that. And what you’re not describing to me in the way that I’m understanding it… again, check me if I’m off here. What you’re not describing to me is the spirit of the book that you refer to, which, the underlying word for me that I wrote down was collaboration. Because if you’re going to come up and say, “Hey, here’s my idea, and I’m doing it.” You’re basically saying, “Okay. Now I’m switching roles in the dance. I take the lead, you take the other.” Okay, but that’s not necessarily a collaboration. If you want to continue down the individual, I’m going to stand my ground, or he stands as ground, it has to be one or the other, it’s a zero-sum game, then that is an approach. But it’s not an alignment and collaboration approach.

STEPHAN: We changed dance room. But maybe just first ask what we dance, actually.

MURIEL WILKINS: And I hear your hesitation around… not even hesitation. You flat out said you’re not going to do it. You don’t want to sit down and have, as they call it sometimes, a come to Jesus conversation where it’s like, “Oh. And let’s wipe the slate clean. Da-da-da.”

STEPHAN: But maybe that’s the wrong approach. Yeah.

MURIEL WILKINS: What’s your hesitation there? What would make that type of conversation… let’s call it a clearing. A reset conversation is what it is. What would make that comfortable for you? Because you said it wouldn’t feel normal to you.

STEPHAN: Actually, to put it the way, what harm could it do? What would be the worst scenario if we have this conversation in next week?

MURIEL WILKINS: What would be the worst scenario?

STEPHAN: Yeah. I’m just trying to figure it out, but no, there is nothing that comes to my mind.

MURIEL WILKINS: I think you’d end up right where you already are.

STEPHAN: Yeah, exactly. So just to make a full U-turn. But maybe having this full U-turn. It’s not U-turn, it’s just full circle. Maybe during this conversation we would be able to actually stop at some point and not come back to the point of departure.

MURIEL WILKINS: Well, you certainly wouldn’t come back to the point of departure because even if you have that and he does nothing, he’s like, “No. No, thank you.” What you will then have that you don’t have now is more evidence or less evidence or information. You will be more informed around, what is the possibility of getting closer to a dual leadership? You’ll have made the effort versus what you said happened at the beginning, which is you said nothing was done, right?

STEPHAN: Yeah.

MURIEL WILKINS: So now you will have put in the effort, some effort.

STEPHAN: Because now I’m wondering why I just immediately said, “I don’t want to do it.” That’s interesting, why this came as a first idea to me, because it also stands in real opposition to collaboration spirit and alignment, because that’s the actual tool to achieve this goal. And I just thought it’s not the best way. So what’s the best way? Yeah. What’s the cost of it? Like one hour or two hours of time. And yeah, a little bit of this stress, tension, whatever, but…

MURIEL WILKINS: The risk is… I’m going to just call it out, or what I think, what’s my hypothesis. The risk is that that part of you who said, “This is what I don’t want to do. I’m not going to have that conversation because it doesn’t feel natural to me.” The risk is, if it doesn’t work out, that part of you comes back and says, “I told you so, Stephan. You wasted our damn time doing this. I told you it wasn’t going to work out!” The question is, if that were to happen, if whatever risk happens, would you be able to handle it?

STEPHAN: That’s the point. We’re really trying to process everything. My internal GPT. Yeah.

Really, that’s the point when you’re really confronted with the picture of yourself, with the image of yourself that your collaborative, whatever. That you value these things. When you really, on a silver plate, you are given the tool to do it, the first thing is resistance. Then after resistance comes hesitation. I still, although intellectually at this point, I’m sure we have to do it next week. When we finish, I’ll schedule a meeting. Yeah, I think it’s just coming back to personality traits, personality issues. I think that’s it. I think that’s it. That’s just personal preference/avoidance/whatever.

Part of me thinks this will be confrontation, which just by principle, I’m usually trying to avoid confrontation. Unless it’s really about super core values, like justice. Then I really fight. But when it’s not super core value, I’m flexible.

MURIEL WILKINS: I’m glad you named it as personality preferences, versus this is just who I am. Because personality preference, I’m honing in on the word preference. Preference is subjective.

STEPHAN: Yeah.

MURIEL WILKINS: Preference is what you choose today.

STEPHAN: Correct.

MURIEL WILKINS: I don’t know about you, but there are times when … If you had asked me for years what’s my favorite ice cream, my preference is butter pecan. Then the other idea, I had some chocolate ice cream and I was like, “Oh! Maybe this is my preference now.” In fact, maybe sometimes I can have both. Okay, there is no rule that I have to just have one flavor of ice cream. There’s a reason why there are multiple flavors.

You, as a personality, are not monolithic. You have these different aspects. The preference is the one that we choose to lean on, or not even choose, we just do it because it’s habitual. I think what’s happening now, and at least the conversation today, what I’m seeing is you’re recognizing that yes, one preference is to not address conflict, or as you put it, avoid conflict. And there’s this other emerging desire for collaboration. Now the question to me and that you have to actualize is how do you enter this relationship, or reset, or bring a different energy to it where you’re holding both collaboration and how to deal with conflict. The two can co-exist.

STEPHAN: That’s really when you just wrote it on the paper, you have to address conflict and then to collaborate. That’s same goal. To collaborate means to address conflicts.

MURIEL WILKINS: That’s right. There’s a fundamental leadership belief that you just articulated for yourself that will enable you to then approach this differently. Versus the belief that if there is conflict, there cannot be collaboration. It’s no a right or wrong belief, it just will lead to different results.

STEPHAN: Correct. That’s this really aha moment, that you just discovered something that was all the time, just in front of you. But for some reason, it was blurred behind. From preferences, or

assumptions, pre-judgements, whatever.

MURIEL WILKINS: For sure. It’s just a matter of readiness. Everything’s always right in front of us until we’re ready to see. There’s one of my favorite quotes, I might butcher it. But it’s like, “When the student is ready, the teacher appears.” I think in this situation, Stephan, you are both student and teacher. When it’s right in front of you, yeah, you’re ready to learn from yourself when you’re ready.

I want to bring this as a landing for you, picking up on something you said earlier, which is intellectually you’re getting it. Intellectually, it’s making sense and you’re going to schedule something with this colleague of yours. I think part of this is now not just intellectualizing it, but actually feeling it, which is why I’ve been pushing a little bit to action. How do you actually put this into reality? From up here, and I’m pointing to my head, to out there.

What I would encourage you to do, your homework is to schedule this, but what I would encourage you to do is between now and that meeting is to actually practice having this conversation. Write it out. What are you going to say? Then actually say it. The practice is not so that you get it right. The practice is so that it warms up in yourself. You’re doing a warmup. You’re feeling what it feels like before it’s actually happening. I just want to make sure you get that distinction. It’s not about so that the conversation is perfect and the sky’s open up-

STEPHAN: Sure.

MURIEL WILKINS: … and all of a sudden, you guys are the best collaborators in the world. It’s so that you can see that you can actually say those words, et cetera. Then that next stage is actually having the conversation with him.

STEPHAN: Yeah. I’m using this tool, but in different contexts of difficult conversations. Meaning asking supervisors or boss for something. Until you ask, the answer is no. But sometimes to actually ask, it is really a lot. These are the situations when I’m practicing it. It’s slightly different, but that’s excellent practice.

MURIEL WILKINS: Yeah.

STEPHAN: That’s excellent approach.

MURIEL WILKINS: Yeah.

STEPHAN: Just to try to say it. When you hear yourself, there’s different channel of experience. “What? How did I say that? How is it possible?”

MURIEL WILKINS: This is extra credit. If you have anyone that you trust, one of your colleagues who knows this person, and they would be willing to role play it a little bit with you, that’s the extra punch.

STEPHAN: Oh, yeah.

MURIEL WILKINS: That would be level three before you actually have the conversation.

STEPHAN: Oh, totally.

MURIEL WILKINS: Okay. I would love to hear, as we close, how are you feeling now versus how you did when we first got started?

STEPHAN: This dual feeling. On the one hand, I’m feeling complete dumb idiot. Actually, these are simple things. But I don’t know, not accessible, they’re hidden, whatever. On the other hand, what I feel is gratitude for this meeting that it’s really unveiled, uncovered these frameworks of understanding the process and what is going on. That gives me a really great, I don’t know, anchor maybe to navigate. Not anchor, lighthouse to navigate. Of course, finally, this meeting gives me the actual action points with scheduling the meeting and practicing the conversation. These three areas, that’s wow.

MURIEL WILKINS: Yeah, that’s amazing, Stephan. I would say when you find yourself in a similar situation, whether it’s this one or a different one where there are pain points, take yourself back up to that lighthouse. Spend the time as you’re doing now just looking at, “Okay, let me look around and try to get an understanding of what is actually happening.” Because if you can understand what’s happening, then you can determine how do I move forward, how do I respond. Okay?

STEPHAN: Totally.

MURIEL WILKINS: Thank you. Thank you for your level of engagement in this.

STEPHAN: Thank you very much.

MURIEL WILKINS: Stephan came into his coaching session unsure about the dual leadership setup he was in, but he left with clarity on steps he can take to turn it around. And crucially, a commitment to own his part of the dynamic. He committed to set up that reset meeting and practice his approach, turning awareness into action. Stephan’s decision to take responsibility for his part is exactly what’s needed to make co-leading work. You can’t control the other person, but you can always control how you show up. When you own your part, whether that’s speaking up clearly, sharing expectations, or clarifying roles, you’re no longer just reacting to someone else’s moves. You’re actively shaping the conversation and relationship. When you take responsibility for your share of any conflict or collaboration, you shift the whole dynamic and that’s where real progress starts.

That’s it for this episode of Coaching Real Leaders. Next time …

Flynn:  I became aware of a need to change. I realized, I was like, “Wait, I’m doing everything for everyone. Me leading this company more looks like me cleaning up everyone’s stuff.”

MURIEL WILKINS: If you’d like to join my community for exclusive live discussions, apply to be on the show, or sign up for email updates, head over to murielwilkins.com. You can also preorder my new book Leadership Unblocked wherever you get your favorite books. You can follow me on LinkedIn @murielwilkins and Instagram @coachmurielwilkins.

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Thanks to my Producer Mary Dooe, Sound Editor Nate Krinko, Music Composer Brian Campbell, my Director of Operations Emily Sopha, and the entire team at HBR. Much gratitude to the leaders who join me in these coaching conversations, and to you, our listeners, who share in their journeys. From HBR Podcast Network, I’m Muriel Wilkins. Until next time, be well.