[concinds]

Put differently: leaders are comfortable with conflict, and know how to resolve it when it arises. Silencing it doesn't resolve it.

This requires good management skills, good listening skills, and problem-solving skills.

Great leaders will make sure not only to be comfortable with conflict, but to make the their whole team knows this fact, so they come forward.

Funnily, in my experience the people that say "diversity results in better products and decision-making" (dominant view today) focus on the wrong thing, and don't realize how important conflict is, or that conflict is what leads to better decision-making. Maybe communication and leadership should be taught in schools? Certainly in universities. More great leaders probably means less need for bloated middle management too.

[alphadevx]

Great comment, only tweak I would suggest is replacing "conflict" with "peer review" in terms of language, as I think people are more comfortable with that.

I'm learning as a leader that I am reluctant to accept a proposal unless it has been thoroughly peer reviewed for gaps or weakness, and if there is some disagreement about the approach, then great let me hear that to. Rigorous peer review is very healthy, the trick is to get people to attack the proposal and not the proposer ;-)