How to Work With People Who Hold Strong Opinions

Editor’s Note: This piece sits within the Cultivated library on communication, power, and collaboration. Strong opinions are a feature of modern knowledge work. This essay explores how to work with conviction without being consumed by it — and how leaders can navigate certainty with clarity, humility, and intent.

How to Work With People Who Hold Strong Opinions

I was recently working with a client struggling to manage a group of consultants with very strong opinions about management and agility.

You know the type. They’ve learned one way of doing things — or they’ve decided their way is the only way — and they defend it with volume and certainty.

In this case, disagreement wasn’t debated.
It was shouted down.

Working with people like this can be exhausting. Their confidence is immovable, their delivery abrasive. But strong opinions are not the enemy. They are energy. They are signal. They are data.

The question is how to work with them without losing clarity
—or yourself.

Listen Before You Respond

The first move is deceptively simple: listen.

When someone is forceful, the instinct is to defend, shut down, or escalate. But listening reveals the structure beneath the noise.

What are they really saying?
What problem are they trying to solve?
What assumptions are hidden inside their certainty?

Listening is not submission.
It is reconnaissance.

And sometimes, buried in conviction, there is insight.

Don’t Take Conviction Personally

Strong opinions are rarely about you.
They are often about insecurity, identity, or a narrow toolkit.

Rigid certainty can mask fear.
Volume can mask doubt.
Dogma can mask experience in a single context mistaken for universal truth.

Reframing this changes everything.
Instead of reacting, you observe.
Instead of escalating, you stay grounded.

Respect Belief Without Agreeing

People’s beliefs are real to them.
Trying to “win” against belief rarely leads to learning.
It leads to entrenchment.

You can respect someone’s belief without endorsing it.
You can acknowledge conviction without surrendering judgment.

This distinction is the foundation of adult discourse.

Learn Their Argument Better Than They Do

If you choose to challenge an opinion, understand it deeply first.
Ask questions.
Map assumptions.
Trace consequences.

The goal is not rhetorical victory. The goal is shared understanding.

Questions disarm certainty. Curiosity dissolves defensiveness.
Understanding creates the possibility of influence.

Accept That Other Ways Work

One of the most humbling truths in professional life is this:
many things work.

Methods succeed in context.
Certainty often comes from limited exposure.

Holding your own view lightly while respecting others’ experience is a form of intellectual maturity.

Ignore When Necessary

Not every opinion deserves energy.
Not every debate deserves oxygen.

Influence has boundaries. Authority has limits. Attention is finite.

Sometimes leadership is choosing silence, documentation, and forward motion over argument.

Communicate With Clarity and Kindness

Strong opinions are often neutralised by calm, kind, structured communication.
Focus on ideas, not personalities.
Ask questions rather than declare conclusions.
Anchor decisions in observations and outcomes, not ideology.

The goal is progress, not dominance.

Don’t Become the Noise

Strong opinions are loud.
Leadership is often quiet.

Responding with aggression amplifies chaos.
Responding with clarity reduces it.
Hold your opinions with conviction and humility.
Fight when it matters.
Let go when it doesn’t.

A Field Note From Practice

I once worked with a consultant who insisted on a single rigid method for organisational change. He dominated conversations and dismissed alternatives.

I listened.
I mapped his assumptions.
I acknowledged what worked in his experience.
Then I introduced alternative approaches with data and case studies.

He didn’t fully agree.
But the team experimented.
Outcomes improved. Conflict softened.

Influence arrived without confrontation.

Key Takeaways

• Listen before reacting.
• Detach emotionally; conviction is rarely personal.
• Respect belief without surrendering judgment.
• Learn the argument deeply before challenging it.
• Accept plurality; many approaches can succeed.
• Conserve energy; not every debate matters.
• Communicate with clarity and calm.
• Lead without mirroring noise.

Strong opinions are inevitable in modern knowledge work.
The skill is not eliminating them
—it is navigating them with clarity, humility, and intent.

Sometimes the most powerful response is not an opinion at all.
It is attention.