The Diplomat
- Jun 19
- 3 min read
Calvin was the most agreeable leader I’d ever coached.
SVP of Operations. Fifteen years at the company. Universally liked — and I mean universally. In the 360 I ran before we started, not one person had a negative word. His directors called him supportive. His peers called him collaborative. His boss called him a stabilizing presence.
It took me three sessions to notice what wasn’t in the feedback. Nobody said he’d ever changed their mind. Nobody said he’d ever taken a side.
Two of his directors had been in conflict for months — a resource fight, the kind that surfaces in every growing organization. Both had brought it to Calvin. Both times, Calvin did the thing he always did: he listened well, validated both perspectives, and asked them to find a path forward together.
“Both of you make valid points” is a sentence that feels like leadership and functions like absence.
The conflict didn’t resolve. It metastasized. Teams picked sides because their leaders had to fight for resources that someone above them should have allocated. Six months in, the stronger of the two directors quit. In her exit interview, she said something that made its way back to Calvin:
“I never knew where Calvin stood. So I assumed he didn’t stand with me.”
When Calvin told me about it, he was wounded. “I treated everyone fairly. I never played favorites.”
I asked him: “Who told you agreement was your job?”
Long silence.
Here’s what I’ve learned about diplomats after thousands of coaching hours: the neutrality isn’t kindness. It’s protection. If you never take a position, you can never be wrong. You can never be the reason someone’s upset. You can never lose the approval that — somewhere along the way — became the thing you actually manage.
But neutrality reads differently from below. To the leader, it feels like fairness. To the team, it’s fog. They can’t predict you, so they can’t trust you with anything that has stakes. They stop bringing you conflicts — not because there are none, but because they’ve learned the conflicts come back unresolved with a compliment attached.
Neutral is a position too. It’s just nobody’s.
Calvin tried something. The next time the resource question came up — and it came up within the week — he did what we’d practiced. He opened the meeting with a position: “Here’s where I am. The platform team gets the headcount this quarter, and here’s why.
Now tell me what I’m missing.”
The room argued with him. It was the most productive meeting his team had run in a year. Because for the first time, there was something to argue with.
Nobody quit. Nobody sulked. The director who didn’t get the headcount told him afterward it was the first time she’d understood how he made decisions.
One thing to try. In your next three meetings where a decision is on the table, state your position before you ask for input. Not after the discussion — before. “Here’s where I am. Change my mind.” Then let them.
Notice what happens to the quality of the conversation. And notice what happens in you when stating a position feels dangerous — because that feeling is the actual pattern.
Here’s the question: When you stay neutral, who are you protecting — the team, or the approval?
What are you not seeing about where you stand? The Radar Check maps it. Free, 2 minutes. therightaltitudebook.com/radar-check
The Right Altitude — available now. therightaltitudebook.com
Comments