If two executives on your team are not getting along, your job is not to referee or stay silent. Meet with each separately to find the real issue, then bring them together with clear ground rules, a decision, and a date to check back in. Avoiding the conversation costs more than having it.
Why two executives clashing becomes your problem fast
A fight between two of your direct reports does not stay contained to them. People pick sides without being asked, decisions stall because nobody wants to move without both signing off, and the rest of the team reads the tension correctly long before anyone says it out loud. Howard Guttman, who has studied executive teams for decades, argues that power struggles between senior leaders delay decision-making, create silos, and breed underground behavior that nobody can point to directly but everyone feels.
Should you meet with them separately or bring them together right away
Separately, first. SHRM's guidance on resolving conflict between direct reports is to start with individual conversations so each person can lay out their account without performing for the other, then follow up with a joint discussion once you understand the real shape of the disagreement.
In the separate conversation, listen for the difference between a disagreement about the work and a disagreement about the person. "Marketing keeps overriding my pricing calls" is a decision rights problem. "I do not trust anything he tells the board" is a different, harder problem, and you need to know which one you are dealing with before you schedule anything else.
How do you run the joint conversation without it turning into a rematch
Set the room up before anyone walks in: what you expect from the conversation, what is off the table (interrupting, relitigating old history, pulling in the rest of the team as witnesses), and what decision needs to come out of it. Then let both of them speak, uninterrupted, while the other listens.
Your job in that room is not to decide who is right. It is to land a decision and a boundary that neither can walk away pretending was never agreed. A SHRM column on managers caught between feuding staff makes a related point: at some point you have to stop being the relay between two people who are capable of talking to each other directly.
Close every joint conversation with three things decided out loud: who owns the specific decision that triggered the fight, what either of them does the next time friction shows up instead of letting it build, and a date, no more than two or three weeks out, to check whether it held.
When does executive conflict mean someone has to go
Most of the time, a conflict between two capable executives is an unresolved decision rights problem wearing a personality conflict's clothes. Fix the decision rights and the personal friction usually drops with it. Watch for the cases where it does not: repeated personal attacks instead of disagreements about the work, broken agreements from the last conversation, or a pattern that survives two or three structured attempts to resolve it. That is no longer something you can talk your way out of. It is a signal about the working relationship itself.
If the two people clashing are your cofounders rather than hired executives, the stakes and the fix look different; our guide to cofounder conflict resolution walks through that version of the problem. For friction across the wider leadership team, see how to reduce conflict on your executive team and the complete guide to leadership team alignment.
What if the structured conversation does not hold
Sometimes two people try this and it still does not work, not because either one is wrong but because the working relationship has worn through. That is the point to bring in someone outside the chain of command. A structured conflict session gives each side a chance to write their view alone first, builds one shared summary from both accounts, and gets you to a documented set of changes, with a check-in at day seven and day fourteen to see whether it held. That is a more durable outcome than another meeting in your office that both of them walk out of still resenting each other.
Frequently asked questions
- What should a CEO do when two executives are not getting along?
- Meet with each executive separately first to understand their view of the conflict, then bring them together with clear ground rules: what you expect from the conversation, what is off limits, and what happens next. Set a date to check back in. Do not let either of them use you as a go-between for messages they should deliver themselves.
- Should I meet with each executive separately or bring them together right away?
- Separately first. A joint conversation before each side feels heard tends to turn into a performance for your benefit rather than an honest exchange. Hear each executive's account of the conflict on its own, then bring them into the same room with ground rules both agreed to in advance, so neither one is ambushed.
- How do you know if executive conflict means someone needs to leave?
- Watch whether the conflict is about a decision or about character. A real disagreement over strategy can usually be resolved with clearer decision rights and a documented process. Repeated personal attacks, broken agreements, or a pattern that survives several structured conversations is a signal the working relationship itself, not just one dispute, is the problem.
- Should the CEO stay neutral in an executive conflict?
- Neutral on the people, not on the outcome. You are not there to decide who is right about the personal history between them. You are there to make sure the business keeps moving, which means setting the decision rights, the deadline, and the consequence for a repeat if the same fight resurfaces next quarter.