06-01-2026IMPACT COUNCIL

Stand your ground or cave in?

How 21 leaders approach dissent to their plans

[Photo: Getty Images]

The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of top leaders and experts who pay dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership, and more.

BY Fast Company Impact Council

It’s hard to be the one at the top, getting pushback to your ideas from various angles. You own the decision, whether it succeeds or fails, yet others also have a stake in the outcome. Discussing and debating the issue involves personalities and data, strategy and operations. There’s no right way to approach it, but there are wrong ways. We asked our Fast Company Impact Council members how they responded when trusted advisors, investors, and senior leaders disagreed with a major decision they wanted to make. Their responses were a master class in tact and vision.

1. DOES DISAGREEMENT STEM FROM THE GOAL, TIMING, OR RISK TOLERANCE?

When experienced people disagree with you, pay very close attention but don’t automatically change course. What’s important for me to understand is whether the disagreement stems from the goal, the timing, or the risk tolerance. I pressure-test where the gap is, and let that guide me to make the call and own the decision. In a recent example, the core pushback was not the goal, but the pace and risk. In the end, we moved forward on a different timeline and with a lower risk profile. — Steve Holdridge, Dayforce

2. DISAGREEMENT IS A SIGNAL

I’ve learned that disagreement is often a signal that you’re close to something interesting. My role isn’t to ignore advisors, but to create a culture where we responsibly test ideas others might shy away from because that’s where real innovation lives. We’re disciplined about risk, but we don’t confuse that with playing it safe. If you never try the counterintuitive, you rarely unlock outsized outcomes. — Neil Waller, Whalar Group

3. WHERE YOU STAND DEPENDS ON WHERE YOU SIT

We built Opus as an AI-native company six years ago. So, we were in a strange position when the AI boom hit. My board asked why we weren’t doing more, building side products, launching tiger teams. We’d been here the whole time. An advisor said, “Where you stand depends on where you sit.” That stuck with me. The VC lens on AI isn’t wrong, just incomplete. They’re pattern matching to previous transformative moments. VCs are right—something big is happening. But the timeline or the strategy isn’t the same for every business. Companies losing the plot are slapping AI on everything. We’ve actually fired vendors for it! — Rachael Nemeth, Opus Training

4. IT’S OFTEN ABOUT RISK

Trusted advisors (e.g. accounting, law, investors) all have a different take on situations than I have as an entrepreneur. I take their inputs and then make the decision based on my experience and willingness to take or avoid risk. Most times, my advisor’s risk aversion was not in sync with my risk intensity, which is why they were advisors and I was the entrepreneur. — Larraine Segil, Exceptional Women Alliance........

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