We enter group spaces carrying invisible scripts: how to belong, how to lead, how to stay safe from conflict or vulnerability. But what happens when those scripts no longer work? When the group itself becomes a mirror, reflecting back our blind spots, our values, and our deepest questions about power, safety, and connection?
In the Organizational Development and Knowledge Management (ODKM) program, Group Dynamics, the first course in the program, isn’t just a course, it’s a crucible. It’s about letting the group teach you through tension, rupture, and the slow, deliberate work of repair. In the process, your own theories begin to emerge, not just from textbooks, but from lived experience, reflection, and the messy beauty of human interaction.
One of the most jarring experiences in the ODKM program is your first day in this class. Everything you thought you knew about how groups work, including your own patterns and protections, gets lovingly dismantled. What returns is a scattered mosaic of identities, assumptions, and unmet needs, each piece asking to be seen, named, and reassembled through shared vulnerability and renegotiated norms.
It’s a human lab of the highest order: a place where tension and restoration become the curriculum, and where wisdom emerges not in spite of the mess, but because of it.
Our strongest emotions, our sharpest disagreements, and our most uncomfortable moments aren't detours, they're data. They point us toward the fault lines in our systems, the values we hold most tightly, and the places where redesign is most needed. Every group you’ve ever been in, are currently in, or will be part of is unpredictable, imperfect, and profoundly instructive, if we’re willing to look closely.
Why Discomfort Is a Leadership Skill
Sitting in uncertainty and discomfort is a skill, one that’s central to the ODKM program and to leadership itself. We will never be able to map out the perfect group dynamic, try as we might.
But real growth happens when we meet moments of unease, strife, and negotiation with openness, a willingness to be changed, and the humble posture required to respond in real time. Collaboration doesn’t just happen; it’s designed. It’s a daily, intentional effort infused into every interaction.
A Personal Story of Misalignment
Think of a time when you were in a group that wasn’t working. Maybe it was a loud voice dominating the dynamic, or a more insidious dread felt when having to engage with a teammate enacting harm. Perhaps a memory is surfacing for you now.
For me, it was a small team I was leading that was supporting a senior leader to revamp performance strategy for the C-suite. No matter what I did or said, she seemed to prefer my teammates’ contributions. I’d share an idea, and it would get shut down; my colleague would share the same idea, and suddenly she was on board.
I was tired of the microaggressions. I wish I could say I handled it perfectly, but other factors were at play. Power imbalances gendered expectations, cultural norms, and a lack of psychological safety all shaped my silence.
Later, I learned she was going through a health crisis that had upended her retirement plans. The system she had served for decades was now failing her, too. Her frustration, fear, and sense of loss were palpable, even if unspoken.
One of the skills I use when teaching empathy is counter assumptions, i.e., simply asking, “What else could be true?” When I engaged in that reflection, I realized her behavior had an infinite number of possible explanations, many of which had nothing to do with me.
None of that excused the behavior. However, it helped me see the dysfunction not just as a personal slight, but as a symptom of a system in strain, one that was impacting both of us.
So, I tried something different.
The next time it happened, I asked:
“I’m noticing that even though my colleague and I are proposing the same method, you’re disagreeing with me. I’m curious what you’re hearing me say, as I want to be sure I’m communicating effectively.”
That question surfaced her own awareness of bias, while also allowing me to make a bid for connection, invite feedback, and clarify whether my communication was landing. It wasn’t easy. But it was transformative. Not because she changed overnight, but because I did.
I stopped internalizing the dysfunction and started seeing it as a system in need of restoration—which required curiosity, not blame. I came in with inquiry instead of assumptions.
What the Research Tells Us
Group dysfunction isn’t just about bad behavior or poor communication. It’s about misalignment of purpose, power, psychological safety, and process. When those elements drift apart, even well-intentioned teams can spiral into silence, resentment, or performative harmony.
The literature is clear:
- Lencioni’s Five Dysfunctions: Absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, and inattention to results hinder teams from performing at their highest levels.
- Hawkins’ Systems Coaching: Dysfunction is not a flaw—it’s a signal. A call to pause, reflect, and realign.
- Rebecca Mitchell’s Research: Suspicion, when met with inclusive leadership, becomes generative. It invites dissent, surfaces hidden assumptions, and reimagines belonging.
Emotional intelligence isn’t just about reading the room. It’s about redesigning it. It’s the infrastructure of psychological safety, especially in diverse or high-stakes environments.
From Teams to Democracies: Group Dynamics as Civic Infrastructure
Group dysfunction isn’t confined to classrooms or conference rooms, it’s a microcosm of how societies negotiate power, dissent, and belonging. The same patterns we examine in Group Dynamics like groupthink, silencing of minority voices, and avoidance of conflict play out on the national stage.
That’s why ODKM equips us not only for organizational leadership, but for civic engagement. Tools like stakeholder consultations, participatory budgeting, and inclusive policymaking help surface dissent constructively and realign fractured systems, whether in teams or in democracies. Their foundation is perspective-taking, mutual interest, and the belief that disagreement can fuel innovation and democratic consensus.
The Schar School’s recent collaboration with the Washington Post revealed that many voters feel politically homeless—unmotivated, unheard, and distrustful of institutions. Just like in dysfunctional teams, silence often signals deeper systemic strain.
And what’s the structural underpinning of these tools? The ability to enter into conflict with perspective-taking, see relationships as bonds with mutual interests, and caring enough about our missions to know that disagreement is the fuel of innovation and democratic consensus-building.
When dissent is discouraged, when unmet needs fester beneath the surface, when performative unity replaces authentic dialogue, systems begin to fracture. And history has shown us that even well-intentioned leaders, in the absence of accountability and inclusive processes, can perpetuate harm.
Dialogue Across Difference: Identity, Fear, and the Power of Curiosity
Redesigning group dynamics to be more democratic, conflict fluent, and human may seem small, but these shifts ripple outward. If I can have real dialogue with you at work, imagine how you might see me at the ballot box.
As someone often navigating bias as the only queer person on a team, I’ve seen how one open, curious interaction can shift perception. The same holds true across identities, including political ones. I have family members with far-right beliefs, including opposition to my right to be married. While I maintain boundaries to protect my safety, I’ve come to see that beneath those convictions often lies fear of change, loss, irrelevance.
Asking “What else could be true?” helps me see their beliefs as reflections of powerlessness, not personal attacks. Holding that complexity doesn’t excuse harm, but it keeps dialogue alive. And from that place of curiosity, something opens: the possibility of learning.
What can we glean from the clarity and community-building these movements have mobilized? How might we reimagine our own strategies, not just to resist, but to resonate, build coalitions, and meet people where they are without losing ourselves?
Fear can be a wall or a doorway. And when we walk through it with compassion and accountability, we begin to see not just who we’re up against, but who we’re called to become.
Dissent isn’t dangerous, it’s diagnostic. It shows us where systems are misaligned, where voices are missing, and where change is needed.
And now, more than ever, that lesson matters. In the wake of escalating civil and human rights abuses, it’s easy, and often justified, to feel anger, grief, and disillusionment. But if we respond only with hate, distance, or avoidance, we risk sharpening the very divides we seek to heal.
What Do We Do?
We stop fixing people and start tending to systems. We ask: What’s unsaid? Who’s unheard? What norms need renegotiating?
We lean into discomfort not as a threat, but as a teacher. We use our ODKM toolkit— facilitation, coaching, systems thinking, emotional regulation, conflict mediation— not to control the group, but to co-create with it.
Final Reflection
Group dysfunction is inevitable—and instructive. It exposes the biases in our assumptions, the gaps in communication, and the potential for deeper connection. The real work isn’t avoiding discomfort, but meeting it with empathy, inquiry, and integrity.
Group Dynamics teaches us to see every silence, rupture, or disagreement as a portal—not just to better collaboration, but to a fuller understanding of what it means to be human together.
Redesigning group experiences isn’t about smoothing things over. It’s about staying present in the mess because that’s where real learning lives—and where change begins.
When a group feels like it’s “not working,” pause. Listen. Ask.
The mess is the method.
And you are part of the redesign.
If this reflection resonates, I invite you to sit with your own group stories. What messes have shaped you? What methods are waiting to emerge?
About the Author
Audrey Rose Liberman is an enterprise learning architect, organizational change strategist, and executive coach with more than 14 years of experience leading enterprise-wide transformation across tech, federal, and nonprofit sectors. As a certified leadership coach and certified workplace conflict mediator, she specializes in designing safe and inclusive learning environments that scale inclusive leadership capability and drive measurable behavior change.
She has partnered with organizations including Microsoft, NASA, ServiceNow, General Services Administration, and The Nature Conservancy to embed DEIA principles into systems-level change, strengthen change capability, and cultivate coaching-informed cultures. She holds an MS in organization development and knowledge management from George Mason University and a BA in cultural studies from the College of William & Mary. She also earned her certificate in Workplace Conflict Mediation from the Mediation Training Institute at Eckerd College and is an Associate Certified Coach (ACC) through the International Coaching Federation.
Based in Baltimore, she lives with her wife and their cockapoo puppy and is currently exploring new opportunities to expand her impact through strategic enablement, inclusive design, and cultural transformation.
Learn more about Audrey Liberman
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Email her at mycoach@audreyliberman.com.
References
Goleman, D. (2007). Emotional intelligence (10th ed.). Bantam Books.
Hawkins, P., & Turner, E. (2020). Systemic coaching: Delivering value beyond the individual. Routledge.
Lencioni, P. M. (2002). The five dysfunctions of a team: A leadership fable. Jossey-Bass.
Mitchell, R., Gu, J., & Boyle, B. (2024). Suspicion, inclusive leadership and team innovation: A motivated information processing approach. Journal of Business Research, 172, Article 114399.