Case Study: CEO and Finance Director Conflict

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I was approached by a large organisation to support with a conflict between two members of the senior leadership team: the CEO and the Finance Director.

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The relationship had deteriorated significantly and trust between them had broken down. Their disagreements were increasingly visible in leadership meetings and had begun to affect the effectiveness of the wider executive team. HR were concerned that the situation was starting to create organisational risk.

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Following a briefing from HR, mediation was agreed as the most appropriate next step.

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In the individual preparation meetings it became clear that the conflict centred on fundamentally different leadership approaches.

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The CEO felt increasingly frustrated that strategic discussions were being shut down too quickly by financial or operational concerns. They wanted space within leadership meetings to explore ideas and opportunities for the organisation before practical constraints were introduced.

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The Finance Director, however, saw it as their responsibility to raise financial and operational risks early in the discussion. From their perspective, some strategic conversations were becoming speculative and lacked grounding in the organisation’s practical realities.

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In the mediation itself, both leaders were able to recognise that their conflict was not simply about behaviour but about different — and potentially complementary — approaches to leadership and decision-making.

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They agreed a Working Plan setting out how they would communicate and challenge each other’s ideas more constructively in future leadership discussions.

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A follow-up meeting a month later showed that the agreement was holding, although underlying communication patterns still required attention.

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To support this, I worked with the Finance Director through a series of conflict coaching sessions. Using the NEO PI-3 psychometric assessment, we explored how their highly analytical and pragmatic style — previously valued as a “critical friend” to the CEO — was increasingly being perceived as overly critical in public leadership discussions.

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The coaching focused on how to raise legitimate governance and risk concerns in ways that the CEO could engage with constructively, including addressing certain issues in one-to-one conversations rather than in public meetings.

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As these changes were implemented, the relationship stabilised. The CEO and Finance Director were able to recognise the complementary strengths in their respective approaches, allowing the leadership team to refocus on the organisation’s strategic priorities.