Hi! I’m Molly. I write about what it actually takes to lead inside growing, changing, scaling companies — the frameworks that help you lead, the honest truth about what it feels like, and the messy work of shaping a career you actually love. If this resonates, you might want to apply to Glue Club, the community I’m building for leaders who want to do this work with more clarity and a lot less loneliness.
I want to hear your thoughts on “Disagree and let’s see” — what resonates, what this brings up for you, why this doesn’t work, anything! Come join our (brand new!) Subscriber chat and deepen the conversation. In case you can’t tell, I really like hearing directly from you and want to do more of it, so I’m also adding a “mailbag.” If you’re stuck, wrestling with something at work, or curious how I’d think about a topic, drop it in this form. I love writing things that actually help people, not just adding more noise to the internet. So I’ll pick things off regularly — sometimes for posts, sometimes in subscriber chats, sometimes in other fun things I’m going to
At a recent Glue Club dinner in New York, someone asked me a question I’ve heard many times over the years:
“What do you do when you genuinely disagree with your founder, but you’re supposed to ‘disagree and commit’? Do you really believe in ‘disagree and commit’?”
If you’ve ever been a senior leader inside a startup, you know the feeling. Your CEO makes a decision that you really disagree with, and you argue against it but they still decide to move forward. It’s uncomfortable enough to swallow your disagreement, but the harder part often comes later when you have to turn around and sell that decision to your own team. There’s a particular kind of loneliness in that, especially when your team also disagrees and you’re supposed to be the steady voice convincing them to believe in something you’re not convinced of yourself.
This is where “disagree and commit” starts to feel heavy. And it’s also where I think there’s a gentler, more honest path forward.
The phrase goes back decades — it shows up in Intel’s management culture and was also popularized at Amazon — and it basically means that once a decision is made, even if you argued against it, you align fully. You execute as if it were your idea, and you help others get on board.
In theory, it sounds very noble and grown-up. In practice, particularly inside a scaling company, it can feel like emotional contortion. You end up running around trying to manufacture conviction — not just in yourself, but in the people who look to you for clarity. That’s often where the misalignment leaks out. You can force yourself to say the words, but humans are good at sensing when someone is saying something they don’t quite believe.
This is why I’d suggest an alternative that feels more human and still keeps the company moving forward.
This phrase softens the pressure without slowing the company down. It also acknowledges something that’s deeply true but rarely said out loud: every decision inside a growing company is an experiment.
People forget this. We talk about decisions as if someone has the “right answer” hidden under a magic hat. But inside startups, especially in the messy middle, no one does. Not the founder, not the exec team, not the investors. We’re all making bets based on incomplete information.
“Disagree and let’s see” allows you to stay aligned with the team without forcing you to pretend you had conviction you didn’t have. It lets you walk into a room with your team and be honest:
“Here’s the path that was chosen. It wasn’t my first pick, but here’s the experiment we’re running, and here’s what we’re trying to learn.”
That’s a much more authentic stance for most leaders than repeating something with a tight smile and hoping no one notices your doubt.
For this to work, the experiment needs to be real. Simply saying “we’ll see” when the CEO decides to move forward is not enough. A real experiment has structure so the whole team can understand what is happening and why.
1. A shared hypothesis
To have a solid hypothesis, you need shared understanding. That means you really do need to align with your founder or CEO on the “why” behind the chosen path — ideally you need to agree on what you’re learning by choosing this direction. You don’t need agreement, just clarity about the assumptions.
2. Clear observation points
For experiments to work, you need to agree on how you’re going to measure success — what numbers are you watching, what timeline are you on, how will you know when you have an “answer”. Choose together what you will look at and when. Pick real signals and real timelines. This gives you and your team a way to evaluate what they’re seeing rather than reacting emotionally.
3. A commitment to learning
Both sides must agree that the purpose is to learn, not to win an argument. When you go back to your team, this makes it much easier to bring them along because you’re not asking them to buy into a decision; you’re asking them to help you collect information.
When you do this well, the dynamic shifts from “who is right” to “what can we learn,” which is a far healthier way for a company to operate.
Humans are extremely good at picking up on subtext. If you secretly hope the decision goes poorly so you can say “I told you so,” your team will feel it immediately. A few things help keep this clean:
Be transparent about your stance in a grounded way.
I like to try things like, “This wasn’t my original recommendation, but we’re moving forward with it, and here’s what we’re watching.” You’re being honest, AND you’re still leading.
Engage in the work.
If you take the experiment seriously, your team will too. Help shape the plan, identify risks, and set up measurement. This is one of the easiest ways to show alignment, even when you didn’t pick the direction.
If it works, acknowledge it directly.
Leaders who can say, “I didn’t initially see it, but this worked,” build tremendous trust. It shows that being right is not the priority. Learning is.
If it doesn’t work, keep the tone neutral.
No eye twitches, no subtle gloating. Just, “Here is what happened and here is what we understand now.” This reinforces that the company benefits from good information, not from winning arguments.
One of the hardest parts of leadership is having to convince others of a decision you aren’t convinced of yourself. It chips away at your internal integrity over time. “Disagree and let’s see” eases that burden because it gives you a way to stay honest without breaking alignment. You’re not performing enthusiasm. You’re guiding a learning process.
Your team can feel the difference. When you frame decisions this way, people don’t expect you to be a cheerleader for something you argued against. They expect you to lead with clarity and curiosity, which is a much more sustainable posture.
And when the next disagreement inevitably shows up, you’ve already established a way to handle it that doesn’t require anyone to hide their instincts or swallow their doubts.
The hard part of disagreement inside a company isn’t usually the disagreement itself. It’s the part where you have to carry that disagreement into your team and help them move forward despite it. That’s the moment where integrity and alignment can feel at odds.
“Disagree and let’s see” is not about indecision. It’s about acknowledging that no one has perfect judgment and that learning beats certainty every time. It gives leaders a way to stay aligned without pretending, and it gives teams a way to participate in decisions even when they weren’t the ones who chose the path.
If you build a culture where decisions are treated as experiments and where leaders can acknowledge uncertainty without losing authority, you create an organization that learns faster, trusts more deeply, and handles complexity with far less friction. In the long run, that’s one of the most valuable advantages any scaling company can have.
Think back on a time when you had to champion a decision you weren’t entirely aligned with. What might have opened up for you — and for your team — if you had been able to hold it as an experiment instead of a conviction?
Where does “disagree and let’s see” help, and where does it fall apart for you? Come join the (shiny and new!) Subscriber Chat about this article to share your thoughts.
If you’re new here, subscribe to get essays like this one regularly — and to join the ongoing conversation among leaders navigating the real work of building companies and shaping careers that actually fit.
I love writing things that actually help people, not just adding more noise to the internet. So if you’re stuck, wrestling with something at work, or curious how I’d think about a topic, drop it in this form. I’ll pick things off regularly — sometimes for posts, sometimes in subscriber chats, sometimes in other fun things I’m going to experiment with publicly...
You can also find me on LinkedIn, where I share more thoughts, tools, and a little of the day-to-day chaos.
And if you’re a leader looking for community, apply to Glue Club, where we talk about the hard stuff, share what’s actually working, and try to get a little better, together.