37 Q UA RT E R _ 0 2 _ 2 0 2 6 - - - - - - - - - McKinsey groups these practices under the principle of obligation to dissent, which frames challenge not as defiance but as duty. How to Put Professional Dissent into Practice Frame dissent as duty. Help teams see challenge as service to the enterprise, not confronta tion. Reframing it this way lowers emotional barriers and raises the collective standard of truth seeking. Build dissent loops. Set aside deliberate moments in meetings to invite missing or opposing perspectives. These structured pauses signal safety and turn disagreement into a productive muscle. Protect the challenger. Respond with curios ity rather than defensiveness. A leader’s tone in these moments sets the cultural norm more than any slide deck. Publicly thanking challeng ers reinforces the sense that courage is valued. Close the loop. Follow through visibly—show what changed or explain why it didn’t. When people see their input shaping outcomes, dis sent becomes energizing. Measure breadth. Track where dissent comes from across levels and functions. Healthy dissent is system-wide, not limited to the confident few. A leader’s tone sets the cultural norm. Publicly thanking challengers reinforces the sense that courage is valued. TRANSPARENT INTERACTION: RESOLVING WITHHOLDS Withholds are unaired truths—resentments, dis appointments, broken agreements, even withheld appreciation—that corrode trust. Left unresolved, they slow execution and fracture teams. Research shows that unresolved tensions can reduce col laborative performance by 30 percent, while teams with high relational trust outperform peers by 50 percent over time. Clearing withholds is a form of courageous conversation that protects trust and allows teams to move forward without hidden friction. This pattern appears everywhere. A Euro pean CEO asked his team members to exchange one way they appreciated one another and one tension that wounded the relationship. At first awkward, the exercise soon built cohesion: “We’re finally rowing in the same direction,” says the CEO. In government, teams that surface ten sions privately maintain focus; those that don’t often spiral downward into leaks and infighting. In sport, unresolved resentments spill onto the pitch, while teams that clear issues early play with unity and flow. For CEOs, the real courage lies in creating forums where withholds can be surfaced and resolved without blame, keeping relationships intact even as difficult truths emerge. It demands the humility to admit when trust has frayed and the resolve to repair it. As Robert Frost wrote: “Something we were withholding made us weak / Until we found out that it was ourselves.” When CEOs model these repairs themselves—naming tensions early and resolving them constructively— they signal that courageous conversations are not exceptional events but a normal discipline of leadership. Healthy organizations deliver healthy results. Companies with strong cultural health achieve 2.5 times higher ROIC compared with their less healthy peers and are 2.4 times less likely to face financial distress. Teams that routinely clear tensions and exchange appreciation are not only happier—they recover faster and perform more strongly under pressure. A healthcare leader in Egypt made this habit ual. After a leadership workshop, he noticed some