Challenge #6: Productive Disagreement
Polite ways to disagree professionally.
Hi leaders,
Welcome back to the leadership challenge. You explore your mindset, confidence, and career direction. Hop in if you haven’t done so yet.
For nine weeks, you receive a small task to work on.
You get a new task every Sunday until the 31st of March. (☛check the previous tasks)
Today’s task is about productive disagreement. Because saying ‘no’ is as important as saying ‘yes’.
For sure, you find yourself disagreeing many times. But do you openly disagree? Or do you save your concerns for yourself? Being silent during team meetings is a classic sign of the lack of psychological safety.
Disagreeing is an everyday skill for work and life. But many struggle with how to disagree. You aim to be polite and respectful:
The challenge is:
Read through disagreeing phrases
Pick one or two you like, and they do not sound too bad to you
Memorize it/them
Next time you disagree with someone, use it to start a discussion.
Disagreeing does not come naturally. It is a skill. The more you train it, the more confident and efficient you will be.
It is not about who is right or wrong but about finding common interests and aligning your ideas, needs, and direction.
You don’t want to make fun of others, punish them, or disrespect them. No. Productive disagreement is understanding each other’s position and considering concerns, problems, and diverse ideas.
Productive disagreement can lead to innovation or even better ideas. Sometimes, you can’t avoid conflict, but you can handle it well, too.
Join the Discord community for questions and get additional resources. On Wednesday, I will drop a few more tips on managing different personalities in the challenge thread.
Monday Case study: Goal failure
Thursday Newsletter: Leadership news
Sunday Challenge #7: Team motivation