How IT pros can master conflict resolution and relationship building
Senior IT professionals and managers have been told for decades to learn the language and the priorities of their business. But that message often still has a hard time resonating.
The problem for many IT pros is simple: perspective. And that difference in how they view priorities often results in innovation stagnation or even conflict with business unit leaders. For these IT pros, communication, cooperation and collaboration are difficult pills to swallow.
“What the working relationship between senior IT professionals and their business counterparts should look like is collaborative – a partnership – ideally focused on aligning IT strategy with overall business objectives and driving success through technology. However, that is not always the case,” explains Audrey Halpern, a consultant at ARH Employee Training LLC, a soft skills and workplace relationships consultancy.
“When IT presents a solution, but the business team doesn’t buy in—it’s often a communication gap, not a technical one.” – Juliette Mao
Many senior business leaders lack technology knowledge, while tech leaders often struggle with so-called ‘soft skills.’ That gap often hinders effective collaboration and decision-making. Each side tends to approach problems from different viewpoints, with business users focused on the business results, while IT focuses on technology.
“The difference in priorities can easily lead to misunderstandings. When Senior leaders have different priorities that may also be highly resistant to change or to adopting any new ideas or change existing processes,” says Halpern.
At best, the working relationship between many senior IT pros and business counterparts can be described as “functional,” explains Juliette Mao, founder of Soft Skills are Hard, a coaching platform focused on emotional intelligence and communication in business. “Each side works in parallel – focused on delivering outcomes – but not always aligned in how they get there.”
What’s usually missing isn’t intent or capability—it’s shared language, curiosity, and trust. There is some good news. Relationships have improved overall. But many still fall short of true partnership. Most leaders agree that IT and business need to collaborate at a strategic level—but in practice that collaboration often breaks down in the day-to-day.
“Strong relationships are built when both sides take the time to understand each other’s priorities and pressures—not just exchange updates. That requires emotional intelligence as much as technical fluency,” Mao says.
Missing elements in dysfunctional relationships
What’s missing to encourage strong relationships isn’t alignment on goals—it’s the soft skills required to bridge differing perspectives.
“When IT presents a solution, but the business team doesn’t buy in—it’s often a communication gap, not a technical one. When a business leader pushes for urgency, and IT resists—it’s rarely just about scope; it’s about how risk and constraints are being communicated. When projects stall or loop in endless revisions—it’s often because one or both sides didn’t feel heard early on,” says Mao.
Skills like active listening, clarity in pressure-filled conversations, and the ability to navigate disagreement without triggering defensiveness are what turn functional relationships into true partnerships. As organizations become more tech-dependent, these human skills are what keep the collaboration strong—and the work moving forward.
Playing the blame game – on both sides
It can be easy to place most of the blame on the shoulders of IT, but in fact, there is plenty of blame to go around.
Some organizations still retain a ‘keep the lights on’ mentality toward IT, hindering its ability to become a true strategic partner. Business leaders may not have a clear enough picture of the role of IT. They often perceive the IT department as a cost, or don’t view IT as being a true part of business.
“There’s an interesting phenomenon known as the “Dunning-Kruger Effect – the less someone knows about a subject, the more they will think they know,” Halpern explains. “If we were to apply this to IT and senior leaders, when you don’t know much about a subject, you also underestimate how much there is to know about that subject. As a result, both sides make assumptions about the other. The business assumes that IT moves slowly on purpose. The IT department assumes that the business users ask for too much too quickly.”
What has changed is that IT leaders are now expected to work closely alongside business leaders to achieve common objectives or drive change management. This puts pressure on IT leaders to be both technically proficient and business-savvy. As technology is becoming more sophisticated, IT leaders need to have a seat at the table to translate technical capabilities into business value.
The impacts of poor working relationships
Poor interpersonal relationships between IT pros and business counterparts can lead to much more then pent-up-frustrations and bruised egos. Poor relationships lead to misalignment, slow decision-making, and missed opportunities, Mao explains. Projects can stall, priorities get misunderstood, and resources are often wasted solving the wrong problems. Over time, this erodes trust—and that’s much harder to rebuild than any system or process.
Without trust, rapport and solid working relationships, miscommunication can lead to duplicated efforts, missed deadlines and increased costs.
“When IT isn’t viewed as a business equal, they aren’t measured in the same way. IT projects may be poorly defined or fail to deliver value due to a lack of alignment,” Halpern explains. “When Tech leaders and senior leaders work in isolation, it can leads to misaligned goal, inefficient processes, and missed opportunities. In large organizations, IT roles can create silos, making it difficult to collaborate.”
Assessing one’s likelihood of causing relationship tensions
So how can an IT pro or leader know when they’re largely responsible for any relationship problems? Pay attention to patterns.
“Are your updates met with silence? Do cross-functional meetings feel tense or surface-level? Are teams looping you in late—or not at all?” Mao poses. “These are signals. Relationship gaps don’t always show up in direct feedback—they often show up in how people engage, or avoid engaging. It’s worth stepping back and asking, ‘Do people feel safe coming to me early? Or only when there’s a problem?”
Another overarching component with IT pros is that they may tend to overemphasize the importance of facts, overlooking the importance of cultivating emotional openness. They may communicate well with fellow tech pros about technical details. But they often struggle significantly to communicate clearly with senior business leaders about a project’s progress and the support it needs. There may also be a lack of empathy on the part of the IT pro.
“When I say IT pros lack empathy, I don’t mean they’re uncaring or can’t feel for another person,” Halpern explains. “Rather, I’m talking about situational empathy – the ability to have gut-level understanding of where that person is coming from – even if both individuals have vastly different backgrounds and life experiences.”
IT pros tend to get caught up in the nuts-and-bolts of the solution they are working on and lose the ability to communicate about anything but their issues. They can become too focused on the technical solution, and not the soft communication issues surrounding the problem they are trying to solve. Because of this disconnect, IT pros may become defensive about their solutions or dismiss business input.
Further, in today’s environment, IT leaders are juggling massive demands—modernization, cybersecurity, AI governance—while often being pulled into business decisions after the fact. That dynamic creates tension.
“Friction usually stems from a mismatch in pace and priorities: business leaders want speed and innovation, while IT is trying to manage risk, legacy systems, and real resource constraints. When IT isn’t brought in early or doesn’t feel heard, communication becomes guarded, and collaboration stalls,” Mao says.
Tips on how to build better relationships, and with them, company success
Both Halpern and Mao had very specific advice on how IT pros can improve their relationship building skills.
Start with curiosity, not control, Mao says. Ask more questions in conversations, especially when stakes are high. Practice explaining complex ideas in simpler terms. Reflect after tense interactions—what landed, what didn’t, and why?
“Emotional intelligence isn’t just about being ‘nicer’—it’s about building self-awareness, reading the room, and adjusting in real time. Small shifts compound quickly,” Mao explains.
IT pros should invest in interpersonal skill training and perhaps check out college courses such as Business Communication, which will teach tech pros to write clearly, present ideas effectively, and adapt messaging to different audiences, listening skills, and non-verbal cues.
“I always encourage tech pros to take a course in storytelling, different than presentation skills, because when you can translate tech into business value and do that through stories or analogies, you are able to bridge understanding gaps,” Halpern says. A course on organizational behavior- such as How Teams Function – can also be very helpful.
“My big one is Emotional Intelligence -focusing on self-awareness, empathy, and managing interpersonal relationships.”
Negotiation and Conflict Management equips IT pros to resolve disagreements constructively and influence outcomes. Cross-Cultural Communication is essential for global teams or working with diverse clients.
Finally, any time an IT pro can acknowledge a skills gap and actively work to develop interpersonal skills, they can not only improve their workplace relationships, but also enhance their careers and contribute to a more positive and productive work environment overall.
