When the disagreement is really about who you are, no solution to what you’re arguing about will hold.
Values-based conflicts are among the most difficult a chair will face — not because they are more dramatic than other conflicts, but because they resist the tools that usually work. You cannot negotiate someone’s professional identity. You cannot compromise on what someone believes the department should fundamentally be. And yet these conversations happen constantly in academic settings — over teaching versus research priorities, over what constitutes rigor, over equity approaches, over academic freedom.
Understanding what makes these conflicts different is the first step toward responding to them effectively.
What Values-Based Conflict Looks Like
On the surface it can look like a disagreement about curriculum, hiring criteria, program direction, or departmental strategy. But underneath, what is actually at stake is each person’s sense of what the department should stand for — and by extension, what their work means. When a faculty member says “we are losing our identity as a research department,” they are not just making a programmatic argument. They are expressing a fear about whether their professional contributions will continue to be valued.
Values conflicts feel personal and existential precisely because they are. A faculty member who disagrees with you about teaching loads can separate that disagreement from their regard for you. A faculty member who believes you are steering the department in the wrong direction may experience your leadership as a threat to everything they have built.
Values conflicts rarely have win-win solutions. When faculty disagree about fundamental principles, compromise can feel like betrayal to both sides. Your role shifts from problem-solver to process facilitator — not resolving the differences in values, but helping people work together despite them.
Look for shared higher-order values. Even when faculty disagree on approach, they often share deeper commitments — to student success, to academic excellence, to the department’s reputation. Frame conversations around those common grounds while acknowledging the legitimate differences in how to achieve them.
Your First Move as Chair
Acknowledge that this is a values disagreement, not a procedural one. Treating a values conflict like a scheduling problem — finding a compromise, splitting the difference — signals that you have not understood what is actually at stake. Name it: “I think we are disagreeing about something more fundamental than the specific proposal.”
Create structured space for people to articulate their underlying values. Ask questions that surface the deeper concern: “What do you think we would be giving up if we moved in this direction?” or “What matters most to you about how this department operates?” You are not trying to resolve the difference — you are trying to make it visible and discussable.
Anchor decisions in shared higher-order values. When the specific positions cannot be reconciled, identify what both sides care about at a higher level of abstraction — student outcomes, faculty flourishing, departmental integrity — and use those as the basis for moving forward. This does not eliminate the disagreement, but it creates a platform for working together despite it.
Five Paths Connection
How your leadership style shapes how you navigate values conflicts
Visionaries may be the source of values conflict more often than they realize. A strong Visionary path can drive significant directional change — which others may experience as a threat to the department’s identity. If this is your dominant path, pay attention to how often faculty are responding to your proposals with existential concern rather than procedural objection.
Warriors may push through values disagreements rather than sitting with the discomfort of unresolved difference. If this is your dominant path, practice tolerating the ambiguity of a conversation that does not end in resolution — sometimes the goal is mutual understanding, not agreement.
Relators may avoid surfacing values conflicts because they sense how personal and charged they are. If this is your dominant path, remember that leaving a values conflict unnamed does not make it less present — it just makes it harder to address when it eventually erupts.
Reflect
Think about a conflict in your department that feels stuck despite multiple attempts to resolve it.
- Is it possible that the real disagreement is about values — about what the department should fundamentally stand for — rather than about the specific issue on the table?
- What does each person seem to be protecting? What would they be giving up if they accepted the other side’s position?
- Where do the two sides share values, even if they disagree about how to act on them?
- What would it mean to help people work together despite this difference, rather than trying to resolve it?
Describe a values-based conflict in your department. What does each side seem to be protecting — and where might there be shared ground at a higher level?