The cost of being right

A version of this article originally appeared in Quartz’s Leadership newsletter. Sign up here to get the latest leadership news and insights straight to your inbox.

The head of operations at a fast-growing company has a reputation for being data-backed, decisive, and rarely wrong. In meetings, they listen, then methodically dismantle weak arguments with metrics and precedent. 

The room usually concedes, and projects stay on track and hit their targets.

Over time, the tone shifts. Brainstorming sessions grow shorter. Meetings get quieter.

An analyst spots an early warning in customer data but hesitates because they’ve seen what happens to team members who speak up. By the time the numbers make the problem undeniable, it’s expensive.

No one ignored the signal. They just learned it wasn’t worth the fight. Company valuation and team morale both take hits.

The boss was right. But what good came from it?

Similar to a long-term romantic partnership like marriage, conflict over “being right” is rarely about facts. It’s about validation.

“Fighting to be right is what I call The Ego Tax,” said Doug Noll, an attorney, professional mediator, and author of several books on conflict resolution and leadership. “It’s the price we pay for uncontrolled emotional reactivity. But the truth is a little deeper. People do not fight for vindication; they fight because they are not being heard. Thus, a boss or leader fighting to be right is fighting to be heard or validated by those underneath. Of course, the people underneath are reactive too, so they can’t possibly listen and validate the boss. This dynamic is in every fight or argument. 

“What each person wants is to be heard, but to be heard, they have to listen first. They cannot do that because their brains are in a high-threat state, which shuts down the prefrontal cortex. So the yelling gets louder.”

The secret, and a foundational life skill, he said, is to learn how to name the emotions of the other person with a “you” statement.

“If your spouse is yelling at you, you might say, ‘You feel all alone in this.’ If your boss is yelling at you, you would say, ‘You’re angry and feel disrespected.’

“Brain scanning studies show that, contrary to what one might expect, the speaker’s brain calms down and deliberative thinking is quickly restored.”

The sound of silence

The real cost of “being right” isn’t resentment. It’s silence.

“The fundamental issue isn’t whether leaders are actually right — it’s that the process of being ‘right’ destroys the influence they need to execute effectively. I call this The Authority Trap, where leaders win arguments but lose their teams,” said Donald Thompson, executive chairman of WalkWest, a digital marketing and advertising agency.

Thompson’s wisdom reflects an oft-used question in marriage counseling: Do you want to be right, or do you want to be married?

“Our research shows that 34% of employees remain silent because they fear retaliation when leaders prioritize being right over being open,” Thompson said. “Furthermore, our Workplace Options psychological safety study across nine countries found that manager relationships are a primary global stressor. When leaders fight to be right, employees learn that truth is costly and silence is safer.

“The real cost is that employees stop contributing innovative solutions and early warnings. Leaders gain compliance but lose the collective intelligence that drives competitive advantage.”

As a recruiter, Steve Faulkner often hears candidates say they left their last role not because of compensation or workload, but because they felt undervalued or like their perspective didn't matter. 

“I've seen technically brilliant executives struggle to keep their top performers because their teams felt dismissed or overruled without being understood,” said Faulkner, founder of the Spencer James Group, an executive search firm.

“Even when the leader's decision was objectively correct, the long-term price for proving that was disengagement and reduced initiative, which often ultimately leads to higher turnover,” he said. “The most effective leaders understand that how they reach and communicate their decisions matters as much as the decisions themselves. 

“When employees feel psychologically safe to voice their concerns or present alternative viewpoints, they're much more likely to commit to the final outcome, even if it's not their preferred path. When leaders shut down disagreement just to assert authority or prove a point, employees may initially comply but will often stop contributing extra effort.” 

When being right is necessary

“In healthcare, being right can save a life,” said Aleksey Aronov, a nurse practitioner and CEO of VIP’s IV, a mobile IV drip therapy clinic in New York. “I've seen how brilliant and world-renowned doctors, who are also medical scientists, can destroy their teams by weaponizing being right. They were right about getting the patient's diagnosis but wrong about treating their team members with the dignity and respect afforded to a cohesive team where open communication is vital for patient success. I realized that if I was going to be right about something, I would only let my team members discover it for themselves, because being right about everything will give you the wrong outcomes.”

Time-sensitive clinical and organizational decisions require leaders to assert themselves. The difference between positive or negative outcomes rests almost entirely on how dissent is handled before and after.

“Of course, there are situations where you must assert that you are right, especially in time-sensitive clinical situations,” Aronov said. “But I think it is important to know how to be right when you assert yourself. For business operational matters, I have adopted a technique where I invite everyone to a Zoom $ZM meeting, present a question, listen to all the suggestions, thank everyone for the input, and then tell them I will make a decision soon. I make and execute the decision, then circle back with my reasoning, stating that I seriously considered everyone's input. This ten-minute Zoom call costs me nothing but pays me back abundantly in loyalty, retention, a team that actually thinks critically, and team members who feel validated and ‘right’ so we can all row forward.”

The process determines the outcome

“Whether the mission is public service, healthcare logistics, small business growth, or legal advocacy, the goal is to find the best answer to a hard problem in service of something larger than any individual,” said Nell Derick Debevoise Dewey, a leadership strategist, executive coach, and author.

“When leaders personalize disagreement — making it a referendum on their intelligence, authority, or status — conflict becomes corrosive,” Dewey said. “People experience the leader’s ‘rightness’ as domination rather than direction. Trust erodes, psychological safety drops, and teams begin to optimize for agreement instead of truth.”

The aim should be for everyone to cooperatively work toward arriving at truth, or the best solution to a problem, together, she said.

“High-trust cultures separate identity from ideas,” Dewey said. “Disagreement is framed as a collective attempt to get closer to the right answer, not a threat to anyone’s standing. Leaders still make final calls, but they make it clear that debate is about stewarding the mission, not protecting egos.”

The paradox is that leaders gain more influence by de-centering themselves in the process, Dewey said.

“The healthiest teams aren’t led by people who stop being right,” Dewey said. “They’re led by people who stop making ‘rightness’ about themselves.”