Conflict Avoided is Conflict Multiplied

A topic that inevitably comes up in almost every 1-on-1 at some point in anyone’s career is the question of direction: whether you plan to remain an individual contributor (IC) for the foreseeable future or eventually move up the ladder into people management.

After 3 years into the workforce, my answer to that question has remained largely unchanged.

I’m not particularly interested in becoming a manager, nor do I believe I am naturally suited for the role. My colleagues have often described me as blunt, direct, and borderline profane. Half-jokingly, I tell my peers that I would much rather wrestle with a complex programming problem than navigate the intricacies of managing people. The former is objective; the latter is deeply subjective.

Office dynamics come with politicking, careful maneuvering (sometimes bordering on the sheer Machiavellian), subtle power plays and layers of unspoken expectations—all of which if I’m being honest, I simply lack the appetite for. But the reality is that you need to be interested and be good at those things to ascend up the ranks.

While my passion for programming has waned slightly over the years (though my new best friend Mr. Claude has rekindled a small part of that fading flame), I still find far more satisfaction in rolling up my sleeves and doing the hands-on myself than being the one asking people to do the so-called dirty work for them.

I know, I know. the old adage reminds us that if you want to walk fast, you walk alone, but if you want to walk far, you walk alongside others.

Perhaps one day my perspective will shift, shaped by experience, responsibilities, or simply just time itself. After all, careers are rarely static; the paths we are certain we will never take sometimes become the very roads we grow into. I might be a frontend dev now and I still intend to be a subject matter expert on that specific domain, but I’m open to have my goals changed as I grow older. For now though, I find clarity in knowing where my strengths currently lie: Close to the work, close to the problems, and close to the craft that first drew me into this field.

Yet, staying on the IC path does not mean one is exempt from one of the most uncomfortable but unavoidable aspects of professional life: conflict. If anything, the longer I spend in the workplace, the more I realize how true the saying from Jordan Peterson is: Conflict avoided is conflict multiplied.

As I grew more comfortable and confident in my role, I slowly found myself at the crosshairs of more people than I expected. Visibility as it turns out, is a double-edged sword. The more relevant you become, the more decisions you influence. The more standards you uphold, the more opinions you voice—and inevitably, the more friction you generate.

My former manager once told me that this is almost a rite of passage for anyone who strives to climb up the corporate ladder. Relevance invites resistance. Impact invites pushback.

In one particular instance last year, the tension escalated so much that he had to step in and mediate an intervention session between me and my colleague. What started as a technical disagreement gradually became borderline personal (and that’s saying a lot coming from someone who compartmentalizes his life).

Assumptions were made, accusations were thrown behind each other’s backs, intent was misread and tone was interpreted more harshly than it was meant. By the time we realised it, what could have been resolved in a quick clarification had already hardened into defensiveness on both sides.

Small misunderstandings like ours, when left unspoken, can slowly harden into assumptions. Minor frustrations, when suppressed long enough, might potentially resurface later as disproportionate resentment. What could have been resolved in a short five-minute conversation quietly evolves into weeks of tension, misalignment, and unnecessary friction.

That experience alongside other conflicts of varying degrees—both work-related and personal—forced me to confront something I had long underestimated: being direct is not the same as being clear. I had always taken pride in saying things as they were i.e. fix the issue, move on, no unnecessary sugarcoatings and embellishments. But clarity without empathy can easily be received as criticism without context.

In the workplace, intention matters, but perception and optics often matters just as much. What I thought was efficiency sometimes came across as indifference, and what I believed was decisiveness occasionally felt, to others, like dismissal.

Avoiding conflict often feels easier in the moment. It preserves temporary peace, saves us from awkward conversations, and protects us from the discomfort of confrontation. But that peace is usually borrowed time. Eventually, the same issue returns and manifests it.self as heavier, more complicated, and involving more people than it needed to in the first place.

I’m still learning that professionalism is not the absence of conflict, but the willingness to address it early, calmly and with clarity. Even for someone who prefers systems over social maneuvering, this is a skill that cannot be outsourced or automated. Technical excellence may define our output and worth, but the courage to handle difficult conversations often determines how sustainable that output becomes over time.

At the end of day, conflict after all is not always a signal that something is broken. In anything more often than not, it is a sign that something matters enough for people to care.