We develop resolving capacity in people, so they can turn towards what matters, find a way forward together and help others do the same, especially when it is difficult.
Purpose. Direction. Competence. Performance, supported by coaching. These matter. But reality changes, especially in complexity, uncertainty and under pressure, and established ways of working do not always stay sufficient for what the situation now needs.
When progress becomes harder, leaders can push harder: more clarity, more direction, more performance. But purpose pursued without enough attention to people can produce resistance rather than movement.
Under pressure, two familiar lines of resistance can grow.
When speaking feels more dangerous than leaving the problem alone.
When people no longer believe those leading them are sufficiently interested in them, their experience or what they have to say.
Voice reduces. Trust falls. Movement stalls.
Hope is what people most want from a leader, ahead of trust.
Those expected to lead are often depleted themselves: just 22% of managers are now engaged.
Difficulty between people is widespread: 44% experienced conflict at work last year.
And where managers reported conflict with a direct report, capability or performance featured in 94% of cases. This is not conflict at the edge of leadership. It is part of everyday leadership.
Across the workforce, about 20% are engaged, 64% not engaged and 16% actively disengaged. Managers sit at 22% and individual contributors at 19%, and manager engagement has fallen year on year: 31 → 30 → 27 → 22. This isn't only a manager problem. It's a system-wide condition, with managers now barely above the people they lead. Those we ask to bring hope increasingly need it themselves.
Asked what helps informal resolution, employers most often point to good relationships, shared willingness and a culture that supports open conversation. Policy matters too, but it works best when it supports the people using it.
The point is not less policy. It is policy that helps people lead, speak, take responsibility and resolve earlier.
Recognition is not response. When something matters, leadership involves a choice: leave it where it is, or turn towards what matters and towards the people within it. In one national study, among those who spoke informally with the other person, 52% said that conversation was the single most important action in resolving the conflict.
Purpose meets people. Competence meets warmth. Through empathy, understanding and engagement, people can say what needs saying, recover agency and find credible ways forward. This is how people bring hope into difficulty, and how movement begins again.
Manager engagement is typically 22%, but reaches 79% in organisations that build the right conditions. Different conditions are associated with radically different outcomes. People can be formed. Conditions can be shaped. Culture can change.
What people repeatedly experience becomes what they learn to expect. Repeated resolving practice shapes culture.
The Resolution Lab keeps the research behind our thinking open, current and challengeable.
Explore the Lab →We learned resolving practice in mediation, where movement has to be found when people are already stuck. Leadership is Resolution takes that capacity upstream, into everyday leadership, teams, organisations and policy, so it can be formed long before difficulty becomes a dispute.
Something important not moving? That is often the best place to start. No pitch, no pressure, just a conversation.
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