Authoritarian or Avoidant Leadership? Both Erode Trust—Here’s What to Do Instead

Authoritarian leadership may silence conflict, but it doesn’t solve it. Learn how both authoritarian and avoidant leadership styles erode trust—and what leaders can do instead to foster healthy, engaged cultures.

Leadership styles shape culture, and nowhere is that more evident than in how conflict is handled. In many organizations, two extremes dominate the landscape: authoritarian leadership that suppresses dissent through control, and avoidant leadership that sidesteps conflict in the name of harmony.

At first glance, these styles seem opposed. One confronts; the other retreats. But both share a critical flaw: they make it unsafe to engage conflict honestly and constructively. And over time, that causes deep cultural damage.

How Authoritaian and Avoidant Leadership Styles Show Up

• Authoritarian leaders often create environments of fear. They value control, demand compliance, and treat disagreement as disloyalty. In these systems, people go silent — not because everything is fine, but because speaking up feels risky.

• Avoidant leaders tend to be conflict-averse. They prioritize surface harmony, delay hard conversations, and hope issues resolve themselves. This can feel caring on the surface, but over time, it breeds resentment, confusion, and mistrust.

Both styles suppress what needs to be addressed. And what gets suppressed doesn’t disappear — it festers.

The Impact of Authoritarian and Avoidant Leadership on Organizational Culture

When leadership can’t model healthy conflict engagement, the ripple effects are predictable:

• Communication becomes performative rather than honest.

• Employees stop offering feedback or ideas.

• Team dysfunction is misdiagnosed as “personality issues” rather than cultural symptoms.

• Burnout increases — not from overwork alone, but from emotional dissonance and unspoken tension.

Most critically, these environments limit innovation and inclusion. When people don’t feel safe to challenge, question, or disagree, the organization loses access to its own intelligence.

What Leadership That Engages Conflict Looks Like

At Workplace Peace Institute, we emphasize the importance of new paradigm leadership. A new paradigm leader is someone who approaches leadership with a mindset that prioritizes dignity, collaboration, social and emotional intelligence, and belonging. These leaders navigate challenges with agility, foster diverse perspectives, and cultivate environments of mutual respect and growth. They understand that leadership is not just about achieving results; it’s about creating systems that empower people, honor diversity, and adapt to change. 

For new paradigm leaders, conflict engagement is a core leadership competency, not a personality trait. Effective leaders don’t avoid or escalate — they engage. They model curiosity in the face of disagreement, and courage in the presence of discomfort.

Shifting from authoritarian or avoidant leadership to new paradigm leadership requires:

1. Self-Awareness and Humility: Leaders must examine how their own beliefs about conflict were shaped — and how those beliefs are impacting the team.

2. Emotional Regulation Under Pressure: Power can amplify reactivity. Leaders need tools to pause, reflect, and respond with intention, especially when tensions run high.

3. A Framework for Engagement: Healthy conflict doesn’t mean raw emotion without boundaries. It means having shared language and norms for navigating tough issues.

4. Willingness to Be Changed by Dialogue: Leadership is not just about making decisions—it’s about being in relationship. That means allowing feedback to shape behavior, not just strategy.

Join the next new paradigm leadership cohort and receive your New Paradigm Leadership Certificate.

Toward Relational Leadership

Ultimately, the most effective leaders today aren’t the ones with all the answers — they’re the ones with the capacity to stay present when things get hard. They create environments where feedback is a gift, disagreement is welcomed, and conflict becomes a path to deeper alignment.

The way leaders engage conflict sets the tone for the whole organization. If fear or silence is the norm, the culture isn’t healthy — no matter how good the outcomes look on paper.

Workplace Peace Institute is an organization systems design and research firm that is singularly focused on creating workplace cultures where people thrive. Workplace Peace Institute supports small to mid-sized businesses in optimizing employee engagement, maximizing organizational productivity, and improving profitability by infusing human security and dignity as foundational attributes of their business model. Our Leadership Academy supports leaders in honoring basic human needs and dignity needs in the workplace, so they can actualize human potential in the workplace. The online Leadership Academy optimizes competencies in human behavior, communication skills, conflict resolution, and Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging to create highly engaged workplaces where basic human needs and dignity are consistently honored. All our courses are offered online and can be customized for in-person workshops and seminars.