Joyful Leadership

Chapter 7 Prayer and Conflict Complaining … is actually one of the healthiest activities that can occur in a marriage. Expressing anger and disagreement—airing a complaint—though rarely pleasant, makes the marriage stronger in the long run than suppressing the complaint. —Dr. John Gottman, Why Marriages Succeed or Fail Conflict is inevitable. And it’s common. One of the models I teach in leadership development workshops is Bruce Tuckman’s model of team development. It’s the “Forming - Storming - Norming - Performing – Adjourning” framework. A sigh of relief is heard when leaders realize the storming phase is normal and, in some ways, essential for teams to perform well. Sharing many different ideas with lots of listening and understanding creates great solutions, and a leader can do much to make the conflict process smoother. I’ll talk about that in the Know-How section. Another Radical Approach Just as the concept of forgiveness radically changes the way we think about feedback, so too the concept of prayer changes the way we think about conflict. In the words of Christ, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44, NIV). Perhaps you think enemy is too strong a word for the people with whom we are in conflict, but if we don’t pray for them, we may actually begin to treat them that way. Praying for our enemies is a transformative process. We simply don’t look at people the same way when we pray for them. It’s a kind of wonderful catch-22: as we pray for the other person, our own hearts change, and we begin to look at the person and the situation differently. A few years back, I had a colleague that I was constantly in conflict with. At times it truly felt like he was my enemy. As we cofacilitated programs together, it seemed that at every turn we couldn’t agree. We had different philosophies about what our roles were and how we were to treat participants. It was so hard! I didn’t sleep well. All the joy of facilitating workshops seemed to evaporate when I was with him. In every interaction, all I saw was him behaving, in terms of leadership, in the exact opposite way of what we were teaching. I certainly prayed for myself: “Oh, Lord, give me strength to bear another workshop,” and “Help me to be at my best for the participants.” I also prayed that he wouldn’t get under my skin. Then one day, I realized I was praying for myself, but not for him. Oh my, was that a humbling moment! So, I started praying for him. I wish I could say I switched to fervently praying for his life, his struggles, his concerns. Most of the time, I simply remembered his name in my prayers. Did things change overnight? They did not, but as I continued to pray, what did change was my heart toward him. About two years later, we completed our last workshop together, and I can honestly say it was a joyful experience, filled with fond memories of when things were good between us. It was truly hard to say goodbye. In our closing circle, I thanked him, in front of the participants, for all his years of service on this program, and I told the class, truthfully, that they had the privilege of working with one of the best facilitators I know. Once our heart changes toward the other person, if conflict is still there, we can bring it up in a healthy way. How we approach the conflict will be impacted by the intention of our heart. The other person will quickly perceive intentions of love and humility instead of pride and self-righteousness. These two different mindsets of dealing with conflict are reflected in the work of Dr. John Gottman. Effective Communication in Conflict When teaching effective communication skills to leaders, I refer to Gottman’s book, Why Marriages Succeed or Fail. When I share the title, I intrigue most people. They wonder, what does marriage have to do with effective communication? Often, they catch themselves in the middle of that thought! […] To close this chapter, I’d like to return to the chapter on acting with integrity. Our behavior in conflict takes courage of our convictions: to be joyful leaders even in the midst of an argument, and to let our values guide us through conflict, so that on the other side, our integrity will be intact. Our actions, particularly during a heart-wrenching conflict, demonstrate the values we use to guide our lives. As the Beatitudes remind us, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”