9 Signs of Resistance at Work: What to Do When Someone is Not Collaborating With You
Resistance at work often hides in silence, sarcasm, or stalled decisions. These subtle signs signal a need for reconnection, not correction. Here’s how to recognize and respond to them before they erode collaboration.
We all know when collaboration isn’t working.
Meetings get tense or strangely quiet. Work slows down. People smile but stop sharing what they really think. Decisions take forever or get undone the moment we leave the room.
These are not random breakdowns. They are signs of resistance.
Resistance always tells a story.
It begins when people perceive that you are unaware, disrespectful, or opposing their view, their purposes, concerns, and circumstances. When that happens, they do what any human system does when it feels threatened. They resist.
Resistance is not rebellion. It is protection.
Learn more about Conversant’s approach to Team Performance and how we help leaders foster collaboration across boundaries.
The Axioms of the Intersection
At Conversant, our work is grounded in three simple truths that explain why collaboration flourishes or fails:
- All humans have purposes, concerns, and circumstances.
- When people perceive you are unaware or disrespectful of those, they will resist and undermine.
- When people perceive you are aware and respectful, they will collaborate, co-invent, and move with you.
When collaboration stalls, these truths are at work.
Resistance is not personal. It is a signal that someone’s sense of purpose, concern, or circumstance has been ignored or opposed.
When collaboration breaks down, these patterns often appear repeatedly across teams and projects.
Waste Is the Smoke, Resistance Is the Fire
In organizations, resistance is often visible through its consequences, what we call the seven signs of waste:
- Local vs. System View: Teams protect their own turf instead of sharing learning.
- Chronic, Unresolved Complaints: The same problem reappears, unsolved.
- Poor Cross-Boundary Execution: Agreements collapse between departments.
- Covert Communication: Gossip, secrecy, and withholding replace openness.
- Impotent Explanations: Stories about “why it’s hard” replace progress.
- Unclear Priorities: Disputes escalate instead of resolving.
- Valuing Tradition Over Truth: “The way we’ve always done it” becomes more important than innovation.
Each of these symptoms points to unseen resistance, places where people feel misunderstood, disrespected, or unheard.
Waste is the smoke. Resistance is the fire underneath.
How Resistance Shows Up: 9 Signs of Resistance at Work
Resistance does not always appear as open disagreement. It often hides in the routines of daily work, shaping conversations, decisions, and relationships.
Here are some of the most common forms of resistance that show up when collaboration is faltering.
1. Agreement without commitment
People nod, say “yes,” and then do nothing. It looks like alignment but is quiet withdrawal. This is the polite form of “no.”
What to do: Invite honest input. Ask, “What hesitations or doubts do you still have?”
2. Chronic complaint
Teams keep raising the same issues without progress. This signals unresolved concerns that have not been taken seriously.
What to do: Ask, “What would resolving this look like for you?” or “What keeps this from getting solved?”
3. Passive compliance
People follow instructions mechanically but without energy or ownership. They do what is required, not what is possible.
What to do: Reconnect to purpose. Ask, “Why is this important to us?” or “What difference will success make?”
4. Cynicism and sarcasm
Humor and irony can mask disappointment or distrust. People have stopped believing that change is real.
What to do: Acknowledge the history honestly and rebuild credibility through small, kept commitments.
5. Blame and defensiveness
Energy goes into explaining or protecting rather than learning.
What to do: Replace judgment with curiosity. Ask, “What are we both learning here?” or “What might we do differently next time?”
6. Delay, overload, and avoidance
People appear too busy to engage, postpone meetings, or defer decisions. Busyness becomes a shield for uncertainty or discomfort.
What to do: Name it without blame. Ask, “It seems we’re waiting. What’s making this hard to move forward?” or “What would help make space for this?”
7. Gossip and side conversations
Talking about instead of talking to. Issues are discussed everywhere except where they can be resolved.
What to do: Invite candor directly. Say, “It sounds like there are some concerns we haven’t talked about. Can we surface them here together?”
8. Intellectualizing
People stay in abstract debate or data analysis and avoid emotional or personal engagement.
What to do: Bring the conversation back to meaning. Ask, “What does this outcome mean to you personally?” or “What are we protecting by staying in theory?”
9. Us-versus-them thinking
Teams or functions protect their own territory and lose sight of the shared system.
What to do: Reestablish shared purpose. Ask, “What’s the outcome that serves all of us?” or “Where do our purposes overlap?”
These forms of resistance are not the problem themselves. They are symptoms that tell you where connection has broken down. Each one points to something that someone cares deeply about but no longer feels safe to express.
Turning Resistance into Research
When you sense tension, hesitation, pushback, or withdrawal, pause your persuasion and begin researching. Instead of trying to convince, get curious. You are not interrogating. You are discovering the story behind the resistance.
Try questions like these in conversation:
To understand purpose
- What are you hoping this will accomplish?
- What is most important to you about this?
- If this went really well, what would success look like from your point of view?
To surface concerns
- What is worrying you about this idea?
- What could go wrong here that we might be overlooking?
- What would make this difficult for you or your team?
To learn circumstances
- What is happening in your world right now that I should understand?
- What else is going on that might affect how this plays out?
- What resources or conditions would help you make this work?
To reconnect the relationship
- What am I missing about how this looks from your side?
- What would make this conversation more useful for you?
- How can we move forward in a way that works for both of us?
When people sense that you are genuinely curious about their world, not trying to win but to understand, they move with you. You are no longer opponents. You are co-investigators of reality, discovering where your purposes intersect.
That is the beginning of collaboration.
Discover more ways to improve collaboration in our Change Leadership programs.
From Resistance to Connection
When we shift from defending our own position to researching another’s, something powerful happens. We begin to see our purposes, concerns, and circumstances as interdependent. We rediscover the intersection, where value, trust, and innovation live.
The Ongoing Work of Leadership
Seeing resistance is not a failure of leadership. It is an invitation to slow down, to listen, and to learn what matters most to the people whose commitment we need.
Leaders who learn to recognize resistance as data, not defiance, turn waste into wisdom. They build systems of collaboration that are faster, more creative, and more humane.
The ongoing work of leadership is to keep researching, every day, through every conversation, how aware, respectful, and aligned we are with the purposes, concerns, and circumstances of others.
When people feel seen, collaboration is no longer a task. It becomes a choice.
Ready to turn resistance into results?
At Conversant, we help leaders transform resistance into insight and conflict into collaboration.
About the Author
Ryo Penna
Consultant
Ryo Penna is a global facilitator at Conversant, based in São Paulo, Brazil, who helps leaders transform everyday conversations into engines of clarity, trust, and results. A TEDx speaker on the wisdom of questions, Ryo’s experience includes leading a 25,000-member student association – his crash course in high-scale, high-impact leadership – and launching multiple businesses as a serial entrepreneur, where he learned that, in the end, it all comes down to how people interact and lead. What he loves most is watching people unlock their potential not by necessarily working harder, but by connecting better and smarter. Outside of work, he runs a secret one-table speakeasy at home, passionately follows soccer, and writes about AI, behavior, and all things human.
