Being right is useful when correctness changes the outcome. It matters when we are designing a system, diagnosing a failure, calculating a risk, or making a decision with real consequences. Yet many of the situations in which we fight hardest to be right are not really about truth. They are about identity.
A discussion begins with a disagreement, but somewhere along the way the subject changes. We are no longer examining an idea. We are defending our competence, status, judgment, or self-image. The argument becomes personal even when neither person openly admits it. At that point, the desire to understand is gradually replaced by the desire to win.
This is where being right becomes wasteful. You may win the argument while losing trust. You may prove the technical point while making future cooperation more difficult. You may force another person to concede without helping them understand anything. Correctness alone does not guarantee progress.
For leaders, mentors, founders, and engineers, that distinction matters. Your responsibility is not merely to possess the better answer. Your responsibility is to create the conditions under which better thinking, better decisions, and better behavior become possible.
The argument beneath the argument
When a person resists an idea, we often assume that the idea has not been explained clearly enough. We repeat it, sharpen it, add evidence, or increase the pressure. Sometimes this is appropriate. More often, however, the resistance is not caused by missing information.
The resistance may protect something.
Perhaps accepting the idea would mean admitting a mistake. Perhaps it would undermine the person’s sense of competence. Perhaps the proposed change threatens a role, routine, belief, or identity that has been stable for years. The visible argument concerns the facts, but the underlying conflict concerns what those facts would require the person to change.
This also applies to ourselves. We rarely experience our own resistance as ego. It usually appears to us as logic. We construct reasonable explanations for why the other person is wrong, why the timing is bad, why the proposal cannot work, or why our behavior was justified.
The reasoning may even be partially correct. That is what makes the pattern difficult to recognize. Ego does not need to invent a complete lie. It only needs to select the facts that allow us to remain unchanged.
From statement to question
One of the most effective ways to interrupt this pattern is to replace the next statement with a genuine question.
Statements tend to establish positions. Questions can create movement. A statement gives the other person something to defend themselves against. A good question invites them to examine the structure of their own thinking.
This does not mean turning questions into concealed accusations. “Do you not understand the problem?” is not a question in any meaningful mentoring sense. It is a judgment with a question mark attached.
A useful question must contain real openness. It should be asked with the willingness to hear an answer you did not expect. Questions such as these can change the direction of a conversation:
What makes this point especially important to you?
What would accepting the alternative mean?
Which part of the proposal are you actually resisting?
What evidence would cause you to reconsider your position?
Are we trying to establish who is right, or decide what should happen next?
The final question is particularly important in leadership. Many discussions continue long after the decision-relevant information has been discovered. The remaining conversation serves only the emotional need for one side to receive recognition.
Applying SOS-TL to conflict
SOS-TL stands for Stoic Operating System for Tech Leads. I use it in coaching as a practical decision and behavior system that helps leaders create clarity, reduce drama, strengthen ownership, and act effectively under pressure.
The SOS-TL framework can be used not only to communicate an insight, but also to diagnose a conflict while it is happening.
Situation
Begin with the observable situation. What was said? What decision is required? What concrete disagreement exists? Remove assumptions about intention, personality, and motive.
A useful description might be: “We disagree about whether this feature should be released now or delayed for another round of testing.”
A distorted description would be: “He does not care about quality.” The second statement is no longer a situation. It is an interpretation.
Observation
Observe what happens within the conversation and within yourself. Which arguments repeat? When does the tone change? Which words trigger defensiveness? What are you trying to protect?
This is the point at which self-leadership begins. It is easy to diagnose the ego of the other person. It is far more useful to notice the moment your own mind stops investigating and starts defending.
Ask yourself whether you are still trying to improve the decision, or whether you are now trying to establish your superiority. The difference can be subtle externally while being decisive internally.
Solution
The solution is not necessarily agreement. Some disagreements remain after both sides have reflected honestly. Leadership does not require endless consensus.
The solution is to restore the purpose of the conversation. Define the decision, identify the relevant evidence, clarify responsibility, and agree on the next action. Where possible, use questions to expose assumptions before imposing conclusions.
The objective is not to remove tension. It is to ensure that tension serves the mission rather than the ego of the participants.
Thesis
The thesis should state the principle that can be transferred beyond the immediate conflict:
Being correct is valuable only when it contributes to understanding, decision, or action. When correctness becomes a form of self-protection, it obstructs all three.
Learning
The learning is personal and operational. What will you do differently during the next disagreement? Perhaps you will ask one question before presenting your counterargument. Perhaps you will define the decision before discussing opinions. Perhaps you will pause when you notice that your need to respond has become stronger than your desire to understand.
Without a behavioral consequence, reflection becomes another sophisticated form of avoidance.
The Otrovert position
I use the term Otrovert for a person who has developed the capacity to observe themselves as though they were also another person.
This is not extroversion. It is not simply introversion, either. The introvert may spend a great deal of time inside their own thoughts without necessarily gaining distance from them. They can remain deeply immersed in their feelings, narratives, and internal arguments.
The Otrovert develops a different relationship with the self. They are still themselves, but they are also able to observe the person who is reacting, defending, avoiding, or seeking approval.
During an argument, this means noticing not only the subject of the disagreement but also the internal character who desperately wants to win it. You begin to ask: Why is this so important to me? What part of me feels threatened? What would remain if I did not receive recognition for being correct?
That distance does not make you passive. It makes deliberate action possible. You can still disagree strongly, establish boundaries, make decisions, and reject poor reasoning. The difference is that you no longer have to obey every defensive impulse simply because it emerged inside you.
A Mirror Book practice
The next time you experience a serious disagreement, write about it later without preparing a defense. The purpose of the exercise is not to reconstruct the argument and prove that your position was justified. The purpose is to investigate the part of the conflict that belonged to you.
Use the following questions:
What was the actual decision or issue?
At what point did the conversation become personal for me?
What did I feel I needed to protect?
Was I seeking truth, progress, recognition, or victory?
Which question could I have asked instead of making another statement?
Did my behavior strengthen or weaken the relationship required for future work?
What will I do differently in the next comparable situation?
The most valuable answer may be uncomfortable. You may conclude that you were factually correct and still handled the situation poorly. Those two realities can exist together.
That is not a contradiction. It is leadership maturity.
Beyond winning
Marcus Aurelius repeatedly reminded himself that people act according to what appears reasonable or necessary to them. This does not mean that every judgment is equally valid or that error should be tolerated indefinitely. It means that human beings do not normally experience themselves as irrational villains. They act from within a structure of assumptions, fears, experiences, and incentives that makes their behavior appear justified.
Understanding that structure is often more useful than attacking the conclusion it produces.
The goal of a difficult conversation is therefore not always to make the other person admit that you are right. The more valuable outcome may be a clearer decision, a revealed assumption, a better question, a changed behavior, or a deeper understanding of your own resistance.
Being right can solve a problem. Needing to be right often creates a second one.
The next time an argument begins to repeat itself, stop adding force. Observe the person you become when your position is challenged. Then decide whether the conversation still serves the mission, or whether it has become another stage on which the ego demands to be seen.
🎓 Practical Takeaway: The “One Better Question” Practice
For the next seven days, make yourself one promise: before responding with your opinion in an important conversation, ask one genuine question first.
Not a rhetorical question. Not a question designed to trap the other person. A question whose answer you genuinely don’t know.
Examples include:
What makes you think that?
What problem are you trying to solve?
What would change your mind?
What am I missing from your perspective?
After the conversation, spend two minutes journaling. Write down three things:
What was I trying to achieve?
At which moment did I feel the need to defend myself?
Did my question improve understanding, or was I still trying to be right?
Repeat this exercise for a week. You will quickly discover that the greatest resistance in difficult conversations rarely comes from the other person. More often, it comes from your own impulse to defend your identity before you have fully understood theirs.
Reflection question
Think about your most recent argument: at what point did the search for a good outcome become a need to defend yourself?
—Adrian
