DISAGREEABLE STATUS GAMES

When Disagreement Is Really About the Game We’re Playing – and When We Stop Playing Altogether

Workplace disagreements are rarely about the topic on the table. Not really.On the surface, it’s about a proposal, a decision, an action, or an interpretation.

But underneath, it’s about something older, deeper, and far more human: status.

Stone-age brains in a space-age world

Our brains are wired to compete for standing in the group. For our ancestors, higher status meant better survival prospects. Those instincts never left us.

We no longer fight over berries and shelter, but the drive plays out in more subtle ways: we seek to be seen as competent, morally right, and influential. And when we disagree at work, it’s often those things — not the meeting agenda — that are really on the line.

You can hear it in the heat of a meeting. The argument stops being about what’s true and becomes about who’s right. People talk less to solve the problem and more to defend their competence, moral standing, or authority. Each comment is a move in an invisible game: I am smart. I am fair. I am experienced. I am indispensable.

Three status games we play

Beneath almost every workplace disagreement, three invisible contests play out — sometimes in sequence, often all at once:

1. Dominance – “I win because I can.”

   
   

   Status is claimed through position, authority, or sheer force of will. The loudest voice in the room, the executive who pulls rank, the project lead who says, “Decision made — discussion over.”

   
   

2. Virtue – “I win because I’m right.”

   
   

   This is the moral high ground. The compliance officer invoking the rules, the sustainability lead citing ethics, the team member framing disagreement as a matter of fairness or justice.

   
   

3. Success – “I win because I’ve proved myself.”

   
   

   Here, the claim to status is built on track record, results, and credentials. “I’ve delivered five successful rollouts, so trust me on this.”

When these games are in play, the conversation shifts. It stops being about solving the problem and starts being about winning the round — and in status terms, winning means someone else has to lose.

The leader’s real job

The leader’s job is not to end the game — it’s to change the rules. You can’t remove status from human interaction, but you can redefine what earns it.

In high-functioning teams, the highest-status move isn’t crushing your opponent — it’s finding a better answer together. This fusion takes two competing ideas, respects both positions, and forges something stronger than either side brought in.

That requires leaders to:

• Be persuadable – Change your mind when someone has a better idea. Show that status here comes from seeking truth, not defending turf.

• Call out the real game – If the room is stuck, name it: “We’re circling around proving who’s right. Let’s get back to solving the issue.”

• Reward the right wins – Recognise people who build on others’ ideas or bridge divides — not just those who score debating points.

When you do this consistently, the culture shifts. People start to see that the way to rise in this group is to contribute to the solution, not dominate the conversation. Disagreements become less about jousting for position and more about sharpening the work.

When the Game Stops Being Played

But here’s the twist: in many organisations, we don’t just play the wrong status game — we stop playing altogether.

As one senior executive told me recently:

“We’re facing an epidemic of agreeableness. In pursuit of happy families and harmony, we’ve created something far worse than conflict — we’ve created a culture of suppression.”

The irony? In trying to make everyone comfortable, we’re making the workforce miserable.A VP of People I spoke to last week put it bluntly:

“Our low performers are scoring highest in engagement, and our high performers are the least engaged.”

The comfort trap

Humans are hardwired to avoid conflict — in prehistoric times, that kept us safe. In modern workplaces, it’s become an organisational weakness.

We mistake politeness for performance. Harmony for progress. Silence for success.

We see it in team meetings: ‘show and tell’ standups with nodding heads where any challenge is seen as not “playing nicely”. We see it in performance reviews, tiptoeing around honest feedback for fear of an HR complaint. We see it when “class troublemakers” who question processes get quietly sidelined while “teacher’s pets” are promoted. It feels safe — but it’s not. It robs teams of resilience, strips away innovation, and produces what I call emotional bubble wrap cultures: soft, smooth, and suffocating.

The great overcorrection

In trying to move away from toxic, win-at-all-costs aggression, some organisations have overcorrected into comfort-at-all-costs.

This is not psychological safety — it’s psychological sedation. And it’s costing us dearly: unsolved conflict drains billions from the economy, but avoided conflict quietly drains the life from our best ideas. The unintended consequence isn’t just the extinguishing of healthy friction — it’s the creation of mediocrity masquerading as cultural success.

The Way Forward

We need to stop seeing status and comfort as opposites. The real divide is between healthy and unhealthy approaches to excellence.

Healthy status comes from building better solutions together, not from dominance or moral grandstanding.Healthy comfort comes from knowing you can bring tension into the room without fear of humiliation.

The best workplaces? They are comfortable enough to be uncomfortable together. Because when people learn to disagree well, they stop defending egos and start defending ideas. They listen more, they build together, and they grow.

The win is no longer over each other — it’s with each other.