When conflict is a good thing

You may be surprised by the title of the blog but the fact is that there can be significant value in conflict if it handled correctly. I am not talking about conflict that arises from poor EQ or power games. I am talking about the conflict of ideas, methodology and priorities.

Why can this be a good thing? For one, it reveals that there are issues that are not clear among those who are experiencing the conflict. Lack of clarity is never a good thing (see yesterday’s blog) so the very fact that there is a lack of clarity gives you the opportunity to work through the issues and come to clarity on an issue that needs clarification.

In addition, it is in the clash of ideas that the best solutions are found. That is why the best organizations today are relatively flat where information is available to all and where it is OK to press into things that we believe need pressing into. Where robust dialogue cannot be had, you have an organization that will suffer because of it. The ability of staff to be able to be candid with one another and their leaders is a barometer of the health of the organization.

One of the common mistakes in conflict is to personalize it rather than to keep it de-personal and seek to identify the clash of values, ideas, or outcomes that has caused the conflict. Getting to what lies behind the conflicting views can help us understand the root issue(s) and allows the group to think through the implications of those root issues. This takes a non-defensive posture by all and a willingness to allow the robust conversation that needs to be had. Often, when you dig to find the root issues – and this only happens in dialogue – you realize that there is an important issue at stake and it was the conflict that brought it to the surface.

Healthy groups have learned the skill of non-defensive conversation and have the ability to keep the conflict centered around issues rather than people. That is a learned skill and a sign of healthy emotional intelligence. It also allows you to use conflict to your advantage rather than allowing it to control you.

What should leaders want to know?

Leaders need to know certain things. Not all things but certain things. Too many leaders want to know the wrong things rather than the most important things. There are four categories of knowledge that are always critical to their success.

First, what is my staff thinking? Too often we assume we know what staff is thinking but we find we are wrong because we have not asked. I want to know if my staff is as passionate about our mission as I am. I want to know if our staff is concerned about issues that I am not aware of. I want to know if there are opinions that have not been shared. Staff is your key intelligence about what is actually going on and whether they are in alignment with you. If you don’t ask probing questions or if staff does not perceive that one wants to actually hear them, you won’t know.

Second, how happy is my staff? I friend of mine once did a consultation with a well known ministry and warned the leader that there was a high likelihood that he would lose key staff members over some dysfunctional organizational issues. The leader didn’t want to hear, didn’t believe the analysis and made no changes. Over the next several years, almost all the key leaders migrated out of the organization.

Staff happiness is impacted by many different issues but some of the most critical include: a compelling vision; ministry clarity; a challenging job; an empowering supervisor; and a collegial ethos. How do you know if staff is happy? Just ask! I ask regularly, “What is your happiness factor (on a scale of 1 to 10)? Almost always I get a candid answer and follow up with questions as to what would make it higher.  In doing so, I am made aware of important issues, some of which I may be able to change.

Third, what do I need to know? That is a common question I ask key staff members. They know a lot of things, much of which I don’t need to know as their leader. However, I trust them to tell me what they believe I need to know. Good staff is intuitive about what they wish their leader was aware of. Asking them this open ended question gives them the opportunity to share what they believe I need to know Follow up dialogue offers further insights.

Four, bad news and potential threats. One of our rules in ReachGlobal is that we don’t like surprises. We know that things will go wrong. We know that there are potential threats to what we do but unless our leaders or staff shares them with us, we cannot act on them.

There should be no surprises to the leader of an organization or to team leaders. Thus, in ReachGlobal we have the SDR rule (Sh** disclosure rule). We know things will go south from time to time but tell us when they do! We will do an autopsy without blame, learn lessons and move on.

Proactive leaders pay attention to the key issues they need to know on an ongoing basis.

Board development

Boards, whether church boards or ministry boards are like any other team that constantly needs to be growing, learning and evaluating its own effectiveness. Too often, we think that because we were put on a board that we have arrived and are among the learned. The truth is that most church and ministry boards are deeply in need of learning better practices and raising the bar on what they do.

But few boards in my experience have an ongoing commitment to growth or a plan for development. I also find board members who are resistant to growth. They are, after all, board members. Ironically, learning boards get more done, get better work done and help the ministries they oversee go to new levels because they themselves have taken a humble learning posture rather than a proud oversight posture.

What are some of the areas that boards need development in?

·       Group process

·       Decision making

·       Conflict resolution

·       Understanding differences in gifting and therefore perspective

·       Efficient meetings

·       Helping the organization get to clarity

·       Developing new board members

·       Ministry evaluation

·       Understanding what is board work and what is not

·       Role definition between staff and boards

·       What a good board member looks like

·       How to evaluate itself

Here are some suggestions for board development. Read several books a year together and set aside some time at one monthly board meeting to dialogue about what you read. Pay attention to blogs on boards such as you will find on this site and others. Periodically bring in someone who knows boards and can do some board training. Pay attention to ministries that resource boards. The bottom line is to be intentional about growing and learning as a board so that you continue to help your ministry develop. Humble, learning boards are the best boards.

Developing as a board is not ancillary work but a primary role of all healthy boards.

Self-deception

Self deception plagues us all to one degree or another but in its severe forms it can be the undoing of ministry leaders and cause significant pain to others.

How would one define self deception? It "is a process of denying or rationalizing away the relevance, significance, or importance of opposing evidence and logical argument. Self-deception involves convincing oneself of a truth (or lack of truth) so that one does not reveal any self-knowledge of the deception" (Wikipedia). The Skeptic's Dictionary puts it this way: "Self-deception is that process or fact of misleading ourselves to accept claims about ourselves as true or valid when they are false or invalid. Self-deception, in short, is a way we justify false beliefs about ourselves to ourselves."

The inherent problem with self deception is that because we have deceived ourselves, we are unable to spot it in our own lives. A friend of mine told a colleague of his that he was self deceived in some critical areas. The colleague pushed back and said absolutely not! Well, how would you know if you were inquired my friend? He went on to point out that the only way for us to be made aware of significant self-deception is for others to point it out. It is something others see but we do not see it. David was self deceived over Bathsheba and it took an outsider, Nathan, to confront him and for David to realize his deception.

This means that the more accessible I am to others, the more likely it is that others can point out self deception in our lives. It also follows that the more isolated we are, or the more resistant to the observations of others, the more likely I will continue down a path of deception until an event is triggered where I am forced to face my issues. The latter is sad because it brings with it far more pain than would have been necessary had we faced our deception early on.

Satan loves to deceive and he is a master at helping to deceive us. In its most deadly form, deception allows us to break ethical and moral boundaries and to fully justify it to ourselves. Thus, we justify an affair, or stealing, or the way we treat those who work for us. After all, we are doing important things and we start to believe that the end justifies the means. Such justification is at the root of many harmful behaviors to ourselves and to others.

Self deception can come in many forms. I may believe that I am a better leader than I am, or may be blind to behaviors toward others that are hurtful. I know of many leaders who have lost their jobs in ministry because they were self deceived about how their staff saw them.  They assumed they were leading well and paying attention to the needs of staff while staff were feeling abandoned and micromanaged. I have also seen leaders deceived about their relationship to their boards until one day it all comes apart.

Because all of us have areas of self deception which are a threat to our leadership or followership, what can we do to minimize the potential damage?

One: We need to be constantly aware of the potential that we are deceived and evaluate our lives carefully and honestly.

Two: We need to have others around us who have permission to speak to us in the event they see blind spots or areas of deception. Wise leaders actually ask the question of those whom they trust around them because they are committed to personal health. Unwise leaders don’t ask and are not open to feedback. I once had someone accuse me of being responsible for issues in his life because I didn’t confront him with what I saw. What he did not realize is that he never asked and he sent very strong signals that he was not open to feedback. In fact, I had already had prior reason to push in on issues that he subsequently ignored. Eventually his world fell apart. He simply was not open to feedback.

Three: It is never a happy day to be confronted by a Nathan. We need to be willing, however, to seriously consider what others see in our lives, evaluate it carefully and respond non-defensively. Defensiveness pushes away feedback while transparency and non-defensiveness invites it.

Four: Invite the Holy Spirit to show you areas of deception. This was David’s plea in  Psalm 139: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

Five: Read Leadership and self-deception. It will challenge you deeply.

Don’t be deceived over your own self deception!

I was wrong

Those are hard words for leaders (and others) to say. In fact, they are so hard that you rarely hear them and when you do it is not that direct but some softer variation. Spin and circumlocution are not the purview of politicians alone. 

Leaders don't like to be wrong. The best leaders work very hard to anticipate unintended consequences of decisions and mitigate against wrong decisions for the good of the organization. But all of us blow it from time to time: A bad hire; words that hurt; actions that disempower; strategies that betray us and the list could go on.

Often when that happens we try to explain our way out of it. Why we did it, what we missed, why it was the right thing to do at the time - as if any of those things mitigate against the fact that we were...well...wrong. 

How refreshing it is when a leader simply says. "I was wrong." Those around them know the truth anyway so a candid reply beats a defense of ourselves every time. 

I know leaders who have left a string of broken relationships behind them because they were unable to admit their errors when they violated other people or did not keep their word. You cannot restore broken trust without first admitting that you were wrong. Hard but necessary words. 

The hardest words are the most important words. Others know it is hard and they respect those who can say them. It models a transparency and humility that is much needed in leadership circles. The irony is that we lose respect when we hang on to our pride and gain it when we admit our mistakes.

I will forgive you because....

It is hard to forgive someone who has hurt us badly. Often times it is someone very close to us which is why the hurt is so severe. One of the lessons I have learned over the years in ministry is that we are more likely to be hurt by someone inside the Christian family than from the outside.

The question always is, should I forgive those who have wronged me - especially when they have not acknowledged the wrong and then, how do I do it when the pain is so severe?

I believe there are always three reasons to forgive.

First, Jesus tells me to. He does not tell me to forget, it will not happen. He does not tell me that the pain will disappear: it may fade with time but may never fully depart. He does not tell me that everything will be OK: it may not be. He does not say it will be easy: sometimes we have to forgive over and over and over as the pain and anger and betrayal refuse to go away. What He does say is to forgive (Matthew 18:21-22). This is one command that is a hard command. It is not fair or just or a natural thing to do. It is one of the hard sayings of Christ.


Is this not why holocaust survivor Corrie Ten Boom forgave those who committed the most heinous crimes against her? Her father and her sister Bessie died at the hands of the Nazi's and she endured the infamous Ravensbruck prison camp.

Corrie recounts the day she forgave her SS guard:


“It was at a church service in Munich that I saw him, the former SS man who had stood guard at the shower room door in the processing center at Ravensbruck. He was the first of our actual jailers that I had seen since that time. And suddenly it was all there – the roomful of mocking men, the heaps of clothing, Betsie’s pain blanched face.

He came up to me as the church was emptying, beaming and bowing. “How grateful I am for your message Fräulein”, he said “To think that, as you say, He has washed my sins away!” His hand was thrust out to shake mine. And I, who had preached so often to the people in Bloemendaal the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side. Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him.


I tried to smile, I struggled to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so again I breathed a silent prayer. Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me Your Forgiveness. As I took his hand the most incredible thing happened. From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me.

And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world’s healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.”

Second, Jesus forgave me. It is the parable of the unmerciful servant, Matthew 18:21-35. It is also a hard saying: "This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart." We have no standing before God when we say, "I will not forgive you for what you did to me" because Jesus forgave us when we did not deserve it. Our offenders may not have deserve our forgiveness - but we did not deserve an even greater forgiveness from Jesus. The truth is that none of us deserve forgiveness from God or from one another. He gave it freely and so we are to give it freely. From one undeserving recipient of grace to another undeserving in need of grace.

Third, bitterness is bondage while forgiveness is freedom. The bitterness that comes from holding on to grievances no matter how large or small is a prison. Here is the irony: when we are wronged the pain can be great but when we refuse to forgive the pain is greater and longer and even more bitter because we now must live with it daily. And this pain is self inflicted. The only way out of our own prison, the injury done to us by others and the injury done to ourselves is to forgive. It is in that act, which may need to be repeated over and over that our own freedom is secured. I refuse to be imprisoned by offenses done to me by others. In forgiveness I find freedom.

What I wish I knew as a young ministry leader

Failure is OK and God has a way of redeeming it

I don’t need to be right

The expectations of others should not define me

Criticism should not be taken personally

I don’t need to prove my worth

My ministry is not what gives me value

Emotional Intelligence is critical to leadership

Anxiety is always wasted energy

You cannot defend your reputation but God can

God cares more about who I am than what I do

God does not solve all issues this side of heaven

Expect the greatest pain from fellow believers

God is always sovereign over our biographies