Businesses based in serviced offices and other buildings have been told that good leadership is likely to feature a degree of conflict.

Kim Stephenson, an occupational psychologist, said that a good boardroom team meant having a diverse group of people who “think in a different way, that wear different colour lenses”.

And that meant disagreements were likely.

But, according to Mr Stephenson, author of Taming the Pound, this was a good thing.

He said: “Despite this, companies should avoid falling into the trap of hiring executives simply because they have cohesive personalities.

“It is human nature to like people like us, and to think since we are good, that a team made up of people who are like us will be a winning team,” he said, but added that this could end in “disaster”.

His comments follow the findings of a recent survey published by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI).

The CMI found that 23 per cent of employees had lost faith in their employers because of their boss’ behaviour.