Trish's Blog

Tension gets a bad reputation in teams because it exposes you.

So, you rush to smooth it out. Manage it. Damp it down. You call that “good leadership.” But tension isn’t the problem. Avoiding it is.

Tension is simply a signal that more than one perspective exists in the room. That something important is trying to surface. That the decision in front of you isn’t as straightforward as it first appears.

And here’s the part many leaders miss: when tension disappears too quickly, it usually hasn’t been resolved. It’s been suppressed.

Where tension is handled badly, people learn fast. They learn when to stay quiet. Which views cost social capital. Which questions slow things down in a way you don’t tolerate.

So, tension doesn’t vanish. It goes underground. You still make decisions but now they’re lighter on challenge, thinner on perspective, and far more comfortable than they should be.

Handled well, tension does something very different.
Explored with curiosity, it exposes hidden knowledge you didn’t know you were missing.
It reveals trade‑offs you’d rather not face but must.
It strengthens decisions by forcing them to survive contact with reality.

Weird Wisdom® at Work reframes tension not as conflict, but as a compass. It points you toward where the thinking hasn’t finished yet. Where Diversity of Thought is present but not yet invited.

The question isn’t whether tension shows up in your team. It’s what you do when it does.
Do you rush to reduce it?
Do you sit with it long enough to learn from it?
Or do people learn that silence is the safer option?

Because every time tension appears, you are teaching people what really happens here. And they are adjusting accordingly.