The Invisible Weight of Workplace Conflict

There are weeks when my coaching calls share an underlying, heavy theme.

This week, there was conflict.

Not the healthy, creative friction that leads to better design or sharper strategy, but the insidious, political, and exhausting kind that follows you home, keeps you awake at 3:00 AM, and makes your stomach drop when a notification pops up on your screen.

If you are navigating this right now, I want to say something upfront: I am not writing this to give you a tidy five-step framework or tell you what to do.

When you are in the thick of a high-stakes power struggle, advice feels hollow. I am sharing these stories simply because workplace conflict is wildly common, deeply isolating, and rarely spoken about openly.

Here is what it actually looks like on the ground right now.

One design leader I work with is building incredible momentum. Their team just presented strategic vision work to executive leadership. But behind the scenes, they are locked in a constant boundary battle with a peer leader who routinely attempts to claim credit, dictate strategy outside her scope, and project unearned authority.

They find themselves forced into a perpetual state of defense.

The Real Toll:

Another leader recently navigated a brutal organizational downsizing, watching their team shrink to half its size. The remaining team members are exhausted, scared, and overworked.

To make matters harder, a vocal team member is actively pushing back on the leader. That dissatisfaction has metastasized across the team, turning daily operations into a landscape of resistance.

The Real Toll:

A third leader is trapped in a two-front war: a direct report who actively resists accountability, and a peer who creates artificial urgency and bureaucratic chaos to frame the leader as unresponsive.

The conflict exists because they set high operational standards and drive accountability, qualities that feel threatening to others.

The Real Toll:

When you are in the middle of these dynamics, standard HR terms like "interpersonal friction" or "misaligned incentives" completely fail to capture what is actually happening.

It feels like being inside spiritual warfare.

It is invisible to most people on the outside. But you are forced to wake up to it the moment someone on the opposite side comes along and you touch that energy. The sheer potency of it is tangible, you can feel it in your gut. It is shocking, unbelievable, and disorienting.

It repels you because it is so sickening, and you find yourself asking in disbelief: How on earth could someone operate like this? How does a person become like that?

When you are a constructive, high-integrity leader, encountering that level of calculated hostility forces a harsh awakening. You realize you aren't just dealing with a difference in strategy, you are colliding with opposing forces, bad intent, and toxic dynamics that defy logic.

Listening to these leaders brought up memories I hadn't touched in a very long time.

Earlier in my career, conflict at work led to me being fired, not once, but twice. It has taken decades, and internalizing the current plight of this generation of design leaders, for me to finally speak about it publicly.

Looking back, both instances occurred during profound personal life changes.

The first time, I was grieving the loss of my father. The second time, I was navigating the disorienting physical and emotional symptoms of menopause.

In both moments, I was vulnerable. I was more sensitive, trying desperately to control things outside my control, and emotionally ungrounded. Life events heavily impact how we show up at work, and that is completely human.

What is not normal or acceptable is how quickly a competitive culture will exploit that vulnerability. Tech is built on a pecking order, where your placement on the curve is evaluated, advanced, or receded every year. When you are going through confrontation in that environment, it is confusing, deeply painful, and overwhelmingly lonely.

If you are in the thick of workplace conflict right now, please know this:

Adversity has a way of showing up until we learn how to protect our peace through it. But I can promise you this: once you go through a dynamic like this and see it for what it truly is; often fearful people projecting their own insecurities onto your competence, you will never let a situation like this take so much from you ever again.

Because of the positions many of you hold, I know you may not be able to comment on this post or share your story publicly. I completely understand.

But if you are currently navigating a situation like this and just need a safe, confidential ear to get it off your chest, no agenda, no pitch, just a human who understands, reply to this email or reach out. I am always here to listen.

Take good care of yourself this week,

Sally