Managing a team with clashing personalities can be one of the toughest challenges for any leader, but it’s entirely possible to navigate interpersonal conflict and build cohesion among team members with different points of view. Here, experts in team management and organizational psychology offer proven methods for fostering collaboration and productivity among a group with differing personalities.
Create Ritual and Name the Storm
Conflict is not a red flag. In healthy, high-performing teams, it is a sign that people are engaged and care about the outcome. The real challenge is not avoiding conflict, it’s knowing how to move through it without damaging trust.
One of the most effective approaches we use is teaching leaders to create ritual and name the storm—not just more meetings or surface-level check-ins.
Ritual, in this case, means building a steady, predictable space on the calendar where teams can name what is working, what is hard, and what they need from each other. These moments become an outlet, a way to lower the pressure before it turns into resentment. They also create psychological safety and permission to tell the truth.
But ritual alone is not enough. Leaders also have to name the storm when it hits. That means calling out what is being felt, even if it is uncomfortable. If tension is building, say it. If something feels off, bring it forward. People do not need every answer, but they do need honesty, presence, and leadership that does not avoid the hard part.
In one team, two high-performing colleagues were consistently clashing. Their conflict was showing up in meetings, in Slack messages, and in how others tiptoed around them. We introduced a shared practice and helped them kick it off. Each person filled out three prompts:
- What am I working on that you may not fully see or understand?
- What do I appreciate about how you work?
- What is the one thing that would help us work better together?
After a brief facilitated start to break the ice, they took it from there. There was no pressure to agree, just space to be honest. That first conversation shifted everything. The issue was not really personality; it was stress, misread intentions, and both of them feeling unseen. Once the story underneath the conflict was named, the energy changed.
The strongest cultures are not built on agreement. They are built on rhythm, repair, and the courage to face what is real. Ritual provides structure. Naming the storm offers relief. Together, they create the kind of trust that holds when things get hard.
And trust is not a soft skill; it is the foundation of every healthy culture and every company that intends to grow.
Lena McDearmid, Founder & CEO, Wryver
Use a 3-Step Process for Personality Clashes
I am very skeptical of personality testing, but I do think most people are self-aware of their own personality “types.” So, when my clients or teams have had persistent personality clashes, we resolve them in a three-step process.
The conversation is done in a group, but everyone knows the questions in advance. Each person answers a set of questions about themselves, their strengths, weaknesses, and triggers (see the list below). We all answer each question before going to the next so that at each step everyone dwells within that topic together.
Others in the group may ask questions during that process. They may also point out when someone is being dishonest (like by saying their weakness is working too hard or some other deflecting nonsense).
Then each person identifies a way in which they are likely to annoy or trigger someone else. This can be very specific and personal. One person may say, “I have a bad habit of interrupting. It probably annoys John.”
Next, everyone identifies a strategy for getting themselves “un-hooked” when someone else in the group annoys them. For instance, John from the example above might say, “I will allow the interruption and then finish my thought and point out that I prefer not to be interrupted.”
And finally, everyone commits to a specific strategy for reducing or stopping the behavior they have learned is most irksome to one or more peers. The person above might say, “I will focus on letting others complete their thoughts and catch myself before interrupting.”
The process works on lots of levels. Everyone learns more about each other and themselves. Plus, each person is equally vulnerable when they identify some trait of their own that is annoying or discourteous. That shared humanity creates more charitable feelings toward each other. And of course, the strategies to both be less annoying and less annoyed help with the ongoing conflicts.
Pretty soon, they are jumping in to help each other succeed in their behavior change goals. After all, most of us have annoying traits or habits. It’s easier to change yourself if everyone is working on their own bad habits with you.
The questions to ask:
- What is your greatest strength as a person and professional?
- What are your greatest weaknesses personally and professionally?
- What three behaviors (in others) most annoy or trigger you?
- What habit or behavioral trait of yours is most likely to annoy or frustrate others?
Amie Devero, President, Beyond Better Strategy and Coaching
Apply Improvisation to Foster Team Cohesion
One of the most effective and unexpectedly transformative approaches we’ve found for navigating interpersonal conflict and strengthening team cohesion is applied improvisation. As a firm championing collaborative methods, we seek tools that foster deeper connections across diverse teams. Applied improv is an underutilized approach that consistently surprises leaders with its impact.
Unlike traditional conflict resolution strategies, improv invites team members to engage in low-stakes, playful activities encouraging listening, empathy, and trust. Through exercises rooted in “Yes, and . . .” thinking, participants suspend judgment, build on ideas, and stay present—skills that lead to effective communication and collaboration.
In one engagement, we worked with a leadership team where two department heads had long-standing tension. Rather than forcing another structured mediation, we led a short improv session exploring shared dynamics. One exercise where each person added a line to a spontaneous story shifted the atmosphere. Laughter replaced tension, and both leaders later reflected that it helped them “hear each other without the baggage.” From there, communication opened and collaboration followed.
The beauty of applied improv lies in its simplicity and emotional intelligence. It fosters psychological safety, invites creativity, and models inclusive behaviors that drive strong teams. In a world where diverse perspectives are a company’s greatest asset, improv helps people move past personal differences to co-create something greater.
For teams exploring this approach, it’s key to start with the right mindset. Improv isn’t about fixing conflict; it’s about creating shared experiences that build trust. Framing sessions as a chance to play and grow together helps lower defenses.
Simple activities like collaborative storytelling or mirroring break the ice quickly. These aren’t about performance; they’re about presence, support, and attunement. What starts as laughter often uncovers deeper dynamics in a way that feels safe to explore.
Leaders should embrace discomfort—it signals authentic engagement. When they model vulnerability and playfulness, others follow. Reflecting afterward on how the experience felt and what lessons apply to daily work helps cement lasting change.
In sensitive cases, a skilled facilitator ensures the space remains supportive. But in nearly any setting, applied improvisation offers something rare: a joyful, humanizing path to stronger teams.
Tyler Butler, Founder, Collaboration for Good
Leverage Group Activities to Bridge Generational Gaps
Leadership often tests you in uncertain ways. Clashing personalities within teams can be most challenging. It becomes even more complex when you factor in generational differences. Approximately 70% of our workforce is Gen Z, with the remaining 30% being millennials. Interestingly, we have talented young leaders heading entire teams.
Now, when it comes to differences in handling teams, Gen Zers tend to value immediate feedback, rapid decision-making, and direct communication. Millennials often prefer more structured processes and elaborate planning. For instance, when a 23-year-old team lead wants to pivot a product strategy based on user feedback, and a 32-year-old senior developer pushes for more comprehensive testing phases, you get real friction.
Most companies default to HR interventions or formal one-on-ones when these conflicts arise. But here’s what I’ve discovered: Those sterile conference room discussions rarely address the underlying issue, which is often just a lack of genuine understanding between different working styles. Instead, we’ve built our conflict resolution around sports and wellness. We often organize group runs and yoga sessions, and quarterly, we participate in marathons as a company. Here’s why this works better than traditional approaches.
During our weekend 10K runs, I’ve watched that same Gen Z team lead and millennial developer naturally start discussing their different perspectives. Without the pressure of deadlines or the formality of meeting rooms, they began understanding each other’s motivations. The younger lead realized that the developer’s cautious approach came from having seen rushed launches fail spectacularly. The developer understood that the lead’s urgency was driven by genuine user pain points.
Physical activity releases endorphins, reduces stress hormones, and creates positive shared experiences. People return to work having seen each other as humans first, colleagues second. What traditional team-building misses is that it’s still work-adjacent. The result? The two individuals now collaborate seamlessly, with the developer’s thoroughness balancing the lead’s speed. Real understanding beats formal intervention every time.
Anjan Pathak, Co-founder, Vantage Fit
Reframe Conflicts to Facilitate Team Understanding
Clashing personalities on your team can be a tough challenge for even the most experienced leader. The field of counseling and psychology can provide some insightful approaches to help navigate this often challenging team dynamic. One of the most simple yet powerful interventions that a leader can implement to help facilitate cohesion and respect is the ability to reframe.
All business leaders know that stories are immensely powerful; they can help you sell a computer, negotiate a contract, and build lasting relationships. Your ability to “reframe” an interpersonal conflict on your team allows you to take control of the narrative and create a picture that can offer more cohesion and assist your team as a whole.
I am a board member of a team that consists of a lead engineer and an attorney. Both are strong and opinionated personalities in their own right, and there was an instance where we were all on a fundraising call and the attorney was hesitant to answer a question, which left the engineer livid. After the call, the two of them went at it—dismissing one another and criticizing the other’s approach. They were both telling themselves “a story” that the call was a disaster. It was evident to me that they were coming from two different perspectives and that all three of us were feeling the pressure to succeed.
I drew upon my experience as a psychotherapist and was mindful not to “split” or take sides and instead find a creative way to reframe this situation. So, I chose to reframe that instead of “being a disaster,” this interaction was exactly what the prospective funder needed to hear. I specified, “He needed to hear that our engineering team was on point and ready to roll, and that our legal team was a risk management superpower and that both voices were critical in ensuring trust, efficacy, and overall professionalism, even if the two perspectives were seemingly ‘at odds’ with one another.”
Although this reframe did not repair every emotion that they were experiencing, or create a Zen circle of transcendent bonding, it did allow both of them to come back to the table and continue creative problem-solving together.
Louis Laves-Webb, LCSW-S, LPC-S, Psychotherapist/CEO, Louis Laves-Webb, LCSW-S, LPC-S & Associates
Study Behavioral Patterns Beneath Personality Clashes
When people talk about “clashing personalities,” they’re usually describing something else. In my experience, it’s often a lack of shared language around pressure and power, and sometimes even belonging.
I tell others not to rush to resolve the tension but to study it. Look for the behavioral loops playing out beneath the conflict. Observe those roles people are unconsciously taking on (e.g., the protector, the performer, the fixer, or the ghost), and the threat they’re responding to. Once you see that, the clash becomes a pattern, and patterns can be interrupted.
One approach I’ve used is to pause the task and invite each person to describe how they’re experiencing the room but not what they think of each other. That alone shifts the dynamic from judgment to self-awareness.
Sometimes someone will say, “I feel like I’m being evaluated,” or, “I don’t know how to contribute without stepping on toes.” I tell them these aren’t personality traits. They’re more like survival strategies.
Cohesion isn’t built by getting people to like each other. It’s more often built when people stop performing and start participating. And that only happens when the system makes space for complexity and when leaders make it safe to be wrong, to not know, and to shift roles.
My mindset? If it feels messy, you’re probably on the right track. Clarity doesn’t come before discomfort. It comes after. That isn’t intuitive. It’s hard. But the best strategies usually are.
Stephen Belenky, Co-founder & Chief Solutions Architect, Hiddn LLC
Shift Focus from Ego to Shared Purpose
Managing clashing personalities isn’t just about resolving conflict but rather about unlocking collective potential. One approach I’ve found effective is shifting the conversation from “Who’s right?” to “What do we need to create together?” That small shift reframes the dynamic from ego to purpose.
A few years ago, I led a cross-functional, multicultural team in developing an extensive executive master class. None of us had worked together before, the project was brand new, the timeline was tight, and we were fully remote. Let’s just say the personality mix wasn’t smooth. The lead designer was fast-moving and visionary. The content strategist was deeply reflective and needed space to process. The graphics designer was opinionated and on their own creative clock. Tension wasn’t just expected; it arrived early and loudly.
I realized the risk wasn’t open disagreement, but one voice dominating and others retreating. So instead of pushing through or trying to “fix” personalities, I hit pause. We ran a no-nonsense values alignment session where each person named what they needed to do their best work. That surfaced something powerful. We all cared deeply about excellence and success, but had radically different definitions of what that meant.
From there, we co-created team agreements. These weren’t platitudes, but real, operational norms such as “share early, polish later,” “ask before assuming,” “silence doesn’t mean agreement,” and so on. Within two weeks, the friction transformed into flow. People understood each other’s rhythms, respected communication preferences, and trusted that everyone brought something vital to the table. We delivered ahead of schedule, but more importantly, we built a culture that didn’t just tolerate differences but thrived on them.
Diverse personalities aren’t a problem to fix; they’re the foundation of a thriving team. But diversity alone isn’t enough. Trust and respect must be earned, and that only happens when each person brings meaningful value to the table. When someone doesn’t contribute, it’s not a personality issue but a clarity and accountability one. The key is creating a culture where every voice is heard, every strength is activated, and everyone understands what we’re building together.
Maria Papacosta, Co-founder, MSC Marketing Bureau
Design for Friction in Team Dynamics
One thing I’ve learned is that you can’t “fix” personality clashes, but you can create conditions where they don’t get in the way of progress.
I manage both marketing and sales teams, which are typically driven by very different personalities, and once we had a situation where two team leads from those respective teams just fundamentally rubbed each other the wrong way. Every cross-functional sync became a turf war, even when they were both technically right.
Trying to mediate doesn’t always work on people. What worked instead was reworking the structure of how they interacted. We reduced direct one-on-one confrontation, shifted their collaboration into shared documents and asynchronous updates, and made KPIs [key performance indicators] the neutral ground. Instead of trying to get them to like each other—we aren’t in elementary school—we focused on letting them work effectively despite the tension.
Over time, that asynchronization lowered the emotional temperature. Their styles never matched, but they could respect each other’s results. The team dynamic improved not because we solved the clash, but because we stopped forcing harmony and started designing for friction.
Andrew Byzov, CMO & HOS, AcademyOcean
Clarify Roles to Prevent Misunderstandings
One thing I do at the start of every project is have everyone write down what they think their job is, and then what they think everyone else should be doing. Then we sit around and read it all aloud. It sounds weird and awkward, I know, but how incredibly revealing it is totally compensates for everything.
I had one campaign a few months ago where a strategist and copywriter kept butting heads. She thought he was stepping on her toes, and he felt like she was micromanaging him. When we did this “exercise,” we found they both thought they were supposed to create the messaging framework. Nobody had ever actually said who was handling what, so they were both doing the same work and getting frustrated.
Once we talked it through, everything calmed down. We figured out who would handle the framework and who would execute it, and agreed to touch base after the first draft, instead of just passing documents back and forth with no real communication.
This takes extra time up front, but it prevents weeks of people working against each other. I’ve done it with design teams, SEO folks, and even video crews. It lets everyone get their expectations out in the open before things get stressful.
And the funny thing is, people are usually relieved when you do this. Everyone’s been wondering about the same boundaries, but nobody wants to be the one to bring it up.
Austin Heaton, Head of Content, Rise
Establish Minimum Viable Alignment for Progress
Minimum viable alignment—I borrowed this concept from Adam Grant, who insists that people don’t need to agree on everything. They just need to agree on what matters most.
Two of our content strategists couldn’t agree. One was obsessed with user data and couldn’t help keeping tabs on Google Search Console and Hotjar. The other was more instinctive. She cared more about the tone and wanted to rely on her gut feeling.
They had the same KPIs but completely different approaches. Monday meetings were passive-aggressive, and it started getting out of hand. I asked them, “If this project were to go south, what would you blame it on?” One said ignoring data. The other said over-optimizing. I asked them to give me a shared list of three non-negotiables.
Two months later, we got better content for our website. Yes, they still disagreed, but this time it was productive. Their list gave us the best-performing blog series we had ever published. Get people to agree on enough to move forward and leave the rest.
Andrew Juma, Chief Executive Officer, CustomWritings.com
Observe Unspoken Cues in Team Interactions
I always pay close attention to what is not being said. Reactions, subtle shifts, and silence often reveal what words do not.
During a recent huddle, several issues surfaced at once. The project manager was trying to show initiative and push the team forward. The developer, who was new to the project, didn’t have space to speak and shut down. The manager jumped in and took over the conversation. That was the moment I stepped in and paused the meeting.
I brought everyone back to where we actually stood in the project. I asked the PM to explain why those features were important to her. Then I turned to the developer and asked directly for his perspective. When he got interrupted again, I stopped the conversation and said, “I asked for his opinion.”
That shifted the tone in the room. From that point on, the team communicated more openly and respectfully.
I stay emotionally present and aware. I watch how people react, not just what they say. When I sense tension or someone being shut down, I force a pause, set structure and boundaries, and make sure people have the space to contribute. That’s what creates clarity, safety, and trust.
Lila Diavati, Managing Director, Momencio
