“Most workplace conflicts come from assumptions, not actual disagreement.”
It’s rarely the big issues that derail teams. It’s the quiet ones. The unclear messages. The things left unsaid. The assumptions.
In my experience, teams rarely fall out because they disagree. They fall out because they didn’t realise they were never aligned in the first place.
Assumptions Fill the Gaps Where Clarity Should Be
People don’t like ambiguity. When instructions are unclear or expectations are fuzzy, the brain does what it’s designed to do: it fills the gap.
Sometimes that’s harmless. But often, the stories we create are worse than reality. Someone doesn’t reply to a message, and we assume they’re not on board. A colleague doesn’t tag you in a project, and suddenly it feels like you’re being sidelined. A quick request for an update? Clearly they must think you’re behind. None of these interpretations might be true. But once the story sets in, it becomes the lens people see through. It’s not conflict. It’s confusion dressed up as resentment.
There’s growing academic consensus that cognitive biases play a major role in these assumptions. Chris Argyris’s Ladder of Inference describes how we leap from data to beliefs to action with barely a pause. Kahneman and Tversky’s work on heuristics suggests we’re wired to rely on mental shortcuts that aren’t always accurate. And when workplace pressure kicks in, those shortcuts only speed up.
Leaders: Are Your Teams Assuming or Asking?
When I see patterns of tension, delay, or silence, I often ask myself: are people assuming, or are they asking? In healthy cultures, you hear clarifying questions. Disagreements surface early, not after trust has eroded. And when something goes wrong, people ask where the misalignment happened, not who to blame.
That behaviour doesn’t happen by accident. It’s a product of leadership. Of the tone you set. Of the systems you build that either reward curiosity or reinforce silence.
Edmondson’s research on psychological safety reinforces this. Teams perform better when they feel safe to speak up, question, and challenge. But I’ve also seen the counterpoint. Some leaders, particularly in fast-growth environments, worry that too much questioning slows down delivery. There’s a tension between psychological safety and performance urgency. It takes real leadership to hold space for both.
Communication Is a System, Not a Skill
We like to treat communication as a soft skill. Something people either have or don’t. But in high-performing teams, communication is a system. It’s embedded in how meetings run, how updates are shared, how expectations are set and revisited.
I’ve learned that the best teams don’t just talk more. They talk better. They’re trained to catch assumptions before they harden into false certainty. They create space to check understanding instead of rushing to action. It’s slower at the start. But it builds trust, and trust builds speed.
Still, there’s another perspective. Some practitioners argue that systematising communication can drain it of authenticity. If every conversation becomes a framework or feedback loop, spontaneity is lost. There’s merit to that. Clarity must not become script. But when misalignment is a pattern, structure isn’t the enemy. It’s the scaffold.
Assumptions Thrive Where Feedback Is Feared
Assumptions flourish in silence. Especially in hierarchies where challenge is discouraged. If people don’t feel they can ask, they won’t. They’ll guess. And once they guess, those guesses become culture.
It shows up in the small things. Teams that avoid conflict but gossip offline. Projects that stall because no one wants to look uncertain. Leaders who assume everything is fine because no one is saying otherwise. By the time the cracks show in performance, the trust has already gone.
We need to build cultures where asking is seen not as a weakness, but a sign of responsibility. Where saying, “Can I check I’ve understood this right?” is normal, not nervous. That shift, small as it seems, makes everything else work better.
We Train People to Deliver. Do We Train Them to Align?
We spend hours onboarding people into processes and platforms. We roll out new tools, push for productivity, talk about collaboration. But when do we teach people to align before they act?
We assume alignment will happen on its own. But alignment isn’t natural. It’s built. Slowly. Deliberately. Through habits of checking in, not checking out. Through leaders modelling the questions they want others to ask.
I’ve come to believe that alignment is both a competence and a culture. We talk about it like it’s a by-product. It isn’t. It’s a deliverable.
From Assumption to Intention
Imagine the next time there’s tension, you pause and ask: What might they be assuming? What might I be assuming? What did I leave unclear? What was left unsaid?
It’s a small shift. But it opens the door to real clarity.
Because misalignment is inevitable. But miscommunication is optional. And in leadership, the difference between reacting to confusion and designing for clarity is the difference between teams that survive and those that thrive.
For me, this isn’t just theory. It’s a constant discipline. I’ve led teams where silence hid misalignment for months. I’ve rushed into decisions thinking I’d been clear, only to realise I’d never truly checked.
So I keep asking. I keep listening. I keep trying to lead through clarity, not assumption.
Theory in Practice
These frameworks underpin this thinking:
- Ladder of Inference – how assumptions and beliefs shape our conclusions (Argyris, 1990)
- Nonviolent Communication – expressing needs without blame (Rosenberg, 1999)
- Psychological Safety – permission to speak up without fear (Edmondson, 1999)
- Communication Accommodation Theory – adjusting style for clarity and cohesion (Giles, 1973)
- Cognitive Biases and Heuristics – understanding mental shortcuts (Kahneman and Tversky, 1974)
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