Two of my senior executives constantly lobby me in private about each other's shortcomings, but act completely professional and silent during our leadership meetings. How do I kill this backchannel politics and force them into healthy conflict?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When executives lobby you in private, you are enabling the dysfunction by listening. Every time you allow a leader to complain about a peer in a private one-on-one, you become an emotional buffer and rob the leadership team of healthy ideological conflict. High-performing teams run on vulnerability-based trust. Backchannels destroy that trust and signal that political maneuvering works better than direct accountability.

The fix requires an immediate rule change. Next time an executive brings you a critique about a peer, cut them off mid-sentence. Ask them one question: Have you brought this directly to them? If the answer is no, end the conversation and tell them they have twenty-four hours to address it directly, or you will bring both of them into a room and make them discuss it in front of you.

Take it a step further in your weekly Level 10 Meeting. When you spot passive-aggressive silence, hesitation, or tension on a topic, call it out immediately on the Issues List. Push the issue directly into IDS (Identify, Discuss, Solve). Do not let them off the hook with polite corporate head-nodding. Force them to define the root issue, state their conflicting positions openly, and argue the merits of the business outcome rather than their personal grievances.

Your job as the leader is not to resolve interpersonal friction in secret. Your job is to enter the danger, protect the health of the seat on the Accountability Chart, and prove to the entire company that problems are resolved openly at the table, not in the hallway.