Summary
Sleep problems may carry a hidden cost for organizations: greater conflict with senior colleagues. Research involving U.S. Army personnel found that sleep problems were most strongly associated with conflict with people of higher rank. The findings suggest that poor sleep may weaken the self-control needed to navigate these relationships, giving leaders reason to consider how work demands and opportunities for recovery affect everyday interactions.
The strain behind everyday disagreements
A conversation about a deadline becomes an argument. A request for clarification draws an unexpectedly sharp response. When interactions deteriorate, leaders often look to the immediate issue or the people involved. They may also need to consider what happened before anyone arrived at work: whether those involved had the opportunity to sleep well.
Managing disagreement requires people to regulate their reactions and consider how to respond. That effort may be especially demanding when the other person has authority over their work. A study by CIL Core Faculty Brian C. Gunia of the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, Paul D. Bliese of the University of South Carolina, and Amy B. Adler of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research examined how sleep problems and organizational rank intersect to produce workplace conflict.
Getting to the source of the problem
Earlier research had connected poor sleep with strained personal relationships and harmful workplace behavior. Less was known about how sleep related to conflict across an organizational hierarchy. Would tired employees direct their frustration toward people below them, where challenging another person might carry fewer consequences?
The researchers expected that pattern. So did everyday people. In an initial survey of people’s expectations, participants anticipated that poor sleep would be more likely to intensify conflict with peers or junior colleagues than with senior colleagues. The U.S. Army offered a revealing setting in which to examine this assumption because rank is explicit and expectations of deference are strong.
An unexpected pattern across the hierarchy
In the primary study of 480 soldiers, greater sleep problems were associated with more frequent conflict across ranks. The strongest relationship, however, involved conflict with higher-ranking colleagues. The pattern challenged the expectation that the interpersonal costs of poor sleep would fall most heavily on those with less authority.
Follow-up research strengthened that finding. In a separate sample followed over approximately three months, earlier sleep problems predicted later conflict-related events involving leaders, including getting into trouble with leadership. The reverse relationship was not significant for those events. Another study, based on soldiers’ descriptions of recent negative experiences, again linked sleep problems specifically with conflict involving higher-ranking colleagues.
The researchers proposed an explanation involving self-control. Senior colleagues make decisions that affect employees’ workloads and access to resources, creating potential friction. At the same time, organizational expectations discourage conflict with those colleagues. Managing that tension may require considerable self-control, which poor sleep can undermine. A sleepy employee frustrated by a senior colleague’s decision might therefore find it harder to raise the issue deliberately without the exchange escalating.
Further analysis offered support for this explanation. When describing disagreements with higher-ranking colleagues, soldiers with greater sleep problems reported less use of every conflict-management strategy measured, including compromise and joint problem-solving. The pattern suggested a broader difficulty responding strategically, rather than a shift toward one particular approach.
These findings require careful interpretation. The studies were observational, relied on self-reports, and involved predominantly male Army samples. They did not definitively establish causation or directly demonstrate the proposed self-control mechanism. Whether the same pattern holds in civilian workplaces, especially those with less emphasis on hierarchy, remains an open question.
What This Means for Leaders
The research gives leaders a reason to include sleep in their assessment of working conditions and team relationships. When conflict becomes more frequent during demanding periods, examining the schedules and expectations surrounding the work may reveal pressures that a conversation about communication skills alone would miss.
The authors pointed to leadership practices that encourage and enable healthier sleep. In practice, leaders could examine whether late-night requests, early meetings, or expectations of constant availability leave employees adequate time to recover. These are practical applications of the findings based on prior research by some of the same authors, not interventions whose effects on conflict were tested in the current research. Their value lies in addressing conditions leaders can influence, rather than treating sleep entirely as an employee’s private responsibility.
Leaders also need to take the substance of disagreements seriously. The authors explicitly recognized that challenging someone of higher rank can be necessary or ethically appropriate. Poor sleep should not become a reason to dismiss a concern or presume that a junior colleague caused a conflict. Supporting recovery and making room for concerns to be discussed respectfully are compatible leadership responsibilities.
Looking beyond the immediate conflict
The next difficult exchange may warrant attention to both the issue being raised and the conditions in which people are trying to address it. Leaders who expect thoughtful responses under pressure should consider whether their expectations for employees make those responses harder to sustain. Protecting opportunities for sleep offers a practical place to begin, alongside the ongoing work of understanding and resolving disagreements.
Access the full research paper here: Gunia, B. C., Bliese, P. D., & Adler, A. B. (2026). Sleep and strife: The effects of sleep on conflict within organizational hierarchy. Academy of Management Discoveries. https://doi.org/10.5465/amd.2026.0031
