Conflict is Load: Galloping Gertie in the Wind
Video: Tacoma Narrows Bridge destruction (1940), public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
I grew up hearing the story of “Galloping Gertie,” the nickname for an ill-fated bridge in Tacoma, Washington.
My mother’s family is from there, and Galloping Gertie was part of the local lore. In 1940, I was told, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge swayed so dramatically in the wind that the roadway rose and fell like waves. That story lived in my imagination, though I couldn’t help wondering if it had been exaggerated in the retelling.
Remember the days when there was no internet to easily pull up the footage?
Years later, when I finally watched the video of the bridge collapsing, the reality far exceeded what I had imagined. The story hadn’t been exaggerated in family tales—it’s really startling to watch!
The bridge doesn’t merely sway. It undulates. The roadway twists in slow, rolling arcs. It looks almost fluid, as though the structure itself has lost confidence in its own solidity.
What struck me most was this: the collapse wasn’t caused by an extraordinary storm or an impossible weight. The bridge failed under steady wind—aerodynamic forces interacting with the bridge’s design in ways engineers at the time did not fully anticipate.
The bridge didn’t fail because it carried heavy traffic. It failed because it couldn’t carry the extra load the gale added that day. That distinction stayed with me.
Conflict Is Load
In organizations, conflict is often treated as an interruption—something disruptive that needs to be resolved quickly so real work can continue. We talk about “managing” it, “reducing” it, “handling” it.
But conflict isn’t an anomaly. It’s an extra load on leaders and teams, and it comes up naturally in the course of collaborating, deciding, and building.
When tension enters a conversation, the content may not change—the agenda, the metrics, the strategic priorities can remain the same. What shifts is the pressure within the system. Emotional activation increases. Interpretations narrow. Stakes feel personal. The air itself seems heavier.
Under ordinary conditions, most leaders function well. They communicate clearly, make sound decisions, and collaborate effectively. But with the extra load of conflict, hidden weaknesses are often revealed. When tension adds pressure, we begin to see what the system, and the leader within it, can actually hold.
Some leaders remain grounded. Others begin to oscillate. Not always visibly or dramatically, and often internally at first—in the quickening pulse before responding, in the tightening of language, in the subtle move toward defensiveness or withdrawal.
These reactions are not moral failures, just human responses to force. Our internal structure is not designed to absorb that sustained tension, at least not without deliberately building stronger internal supports beneath our first reactions.
The Wind Isn’t Optional
It would be comforting to believe that the lesson of Galloping Gertie is simply this: avoid wind. But in the real world, wind isn’t something we can turn off.
Nor is disagreement. Or misunderstandings. Or clashing priorities.
Organizations are living systems: people care deeply, perspectives differ, priorities compete, decisions carry consequences. Tension is not evidence of dysfunction; it’s evidence of active engagement.
So the problem is not the presence of load. The problem is insufficient capacity to carry it.
A lot of leadership development focuses on strategy, clarity, communication skill—all necessary beams in the structure. Yet what is often left unaddressed is the leader’s capacity. . .
. . .to remain steady when the emotional and relational forces increase.
. . .to hold difference without distorting it.
. . .to stay open when it would be easier to protect.
. . .to carry tension without transferring it to others.
This is the capacity we call Conflict EQ™.
And like any bridge designed to carry dynamic load, it’s not accidental. It has to be built.
Building Something Leaders Can Stand On
Conflict EQ is less about “fixing” disagreement and more about constructing something leaders can stand on when tension rises.
When conflict emerges, leaders often find themselves on opposite sides of a gap shaped by differing perspectives, priorities, emotions, or assumptions. Without structure beneath the chasm, predictable patterns emerge: we avoid the gap entirely; we rush across it without enough support; or we begin firing over it defensively, hoping force will substitute for stability.
A bridge does something different.
It creates a way across difference—connecting perspectives, emotions, and interests that might otherwise remain separated. And it does so not by eliminating the gap, but by spanning it.
If conflict is load, then Conflict EQ is the structure that carries it. It’s built with the same intentionality as building a bridge.
Create stable footing: Regulate emotional activation and clarify what is actually happening beneath the surface of the conversation. Instead of reacting to the first surge of interpretation, slow the oscillation. Separate wind from structure before taking a step forward.
Strengthen both sides: Acknowledge perspectives and emotions, your own and others’, without collapsing into them. Disagreement does not erase legitimacy. Emotional intensity does not negate care. Each side needs reinforcement if the span is going to carry the load.
Span the gap: Engage disagreement directly. Ask questions that widen understanding rather than narrow it. Let curiosity interrupt certainty. Make the crossing intentional rather than reactive.
Maintain the bridge:Treat tension as an ongoing condition, not a single event. Revisit assumptions. Repair small fractures before they widen. Continue conversations in ways that build trust rather than quietly erode it.
The bridge is not about agreement.
It’s about connection strong enough to hold difference.
Where We Underestimate Load
Engineers describe what happened at the Tacoma Narrows Bridge as resonance—wind interacting with the structure in a way that amplified motion rather than settling it. The wind did not simply push against the structure; it interacted with it, building momentum over time until the movement could no longer be contained.
Something similar happens between people. A comment intersects with an old story. A challenge brushes up against identity. A disagreement activates fear of a loss of status, control, or belonging.
The wind meets the structure. And if the structure is not designed to absorb that force, oscillation increases.
Rarely does collapse arrive all at once. More often, it shows up in small ways: a tense pattern of defensiveness, a growing reluctance to speak candidly, a quiet erosion of trust. Conversations become shorter, safer, less honest.
Small movements, repeated over time, begin to reinforce each other. What was once a minor tightening becomes a pattern. What was once a brief hesitation becomes silence. The load on the relationship increases—and sometimes it gives way.
The question isn’t whether tension will surface. It will.
The question is whether we’ve built an internal structure beneath the relationship strong enough to keep the connection steady.
The Work We Do at Conflict EQ
When I finally watched the footage of Galloping Gertie, what unsettled me wasn’t just the collapse. It was how long the bridge moved before anything gave way. No single gust caused the failure. The movement just accumulated.
Conflict works the same way. Not explosive at first—just unsettling movement. Just strain. And eventually, a reckoning.
Sometimes, the work we do at Conflict EQ helps leaders and teams face that reckoning—adding steadiness and skills so further damage is prevented and learning becomes possible.
And sometimes, we support the deeper, structural work—strengthening the internal architecture that allows leaders to stay steady when the wind rises.
We believe disagreement does not automatically mean collapse.
Tension does not automatically translate into galloping.
So we help people build for the inevitable wind.