{"id":39559,"date":"2024-11-18T10:51:00","date_gmt":"2024-11-18T18:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=39559"},"modified":"2024-11-18T10:51:00","modified_gmt":"2024-11-18T18:51:00","slug":"what-might-happen-if-the-church-embraces-conflict-as-a-new-normal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/what-might-happen-if-the-church-embraces-conflict-as-a-new-normal\/","title":{"rendered":"What Might Happen if the Church Embraces Conflict as a New Normal?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cHope is not the conviction that something will turn out well. \u00a0It is the certainty that something is worth doing no matter how it turns out.\u201d<\/span><\/em>\u00a0– Vaclav Havel<\/span><\/p>\n

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At the start of every mediation, I ask the parties this question: \u201cWhat is your highest hope?\u201d \u00a0It doesn\u2019t matter if the conflict is between divorced parents, executive leaders or pastors and parishioners, each person expresses their highest hope even in the most destructive of circumstances. \u00a0In researching this week\u2019s author, Margaret Wheatley, whose writing voice sounded familiar as I heard echoes of Madeleine L\u2019Engle[1]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0and Meyer and Land[2]<\/a><\/sup>\u2013the quote above is from Wheatley\u2019s website. Overall, her writings, poems and service leadership invite leaders to rethink their approaches to guiding organizations, suggesting that the future of leadership lies in embracing uncertainty, complexity and the natural, interconnected world of living systems. \u00a0Wheatley\u2019s books,\u00a0Finding Our Way: Leadership for an Uncertain Time<\/span><\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Leadership and the New Science<\/em>,<\/span>\u00a0both express her highest hopes for helping people find their way through ambiguity and chaos\u2013I particularly appreciated her deeper emphasis on how leaders can support and guide others in times of crisis or transformation.[3]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

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Immediately my thoughts centered on the Church, pastors in particular, who are working diligently against the mechanistic and hierarchical models of leadership. \u00a0From knowing my own pastors throughout my life and the pastors in our cohort, I witness servant women and men who embrace their churches as living systems, facilitating relationships, and working hard at nurturing self-organizing capabilities. I am wrestling with how a pastor of a church can do what Wheatley suggests in Leadership and the New Science\u00a0<\/span>by leaning heavily on the idea that leadership creates conditions where organizations can self-organize, adapt, and thrive,[4]<\/a><\/sup> especially in our current culture where interpersonal conflict is now the norm.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

However, in Wheatley\u2019s second book,\u00a0Finding Our Way,<\/span><\/em>[5]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0I found she focused more on the human and emotional aspects of leadership, placing a greater emphasis on the psychological and spiritual dimensions. \u00a0Much like Annabel Bereel[6]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0and Simon Walker,[7]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0Wheatley suggests deep connection and shared purpose in the face of uncertainty and profound societal and organizational change.<\/span><\/p>\n

For the remainder of my post, I want to explore a dynamic I am seeing in my work within organizations when collaborative, humane systems-oriented approaches to leadership are being born even in the midst of control-based leadership.<\/span><\/p>\n

The question I am asking you, as my cohort, is how might the church find its way forward if its leaders are equipped to identify and transform interpersonal conflict? \u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ll share a story to illustrate what I am asking and why. \u00a0I\u2019ll attempt to synthesize a couple of Wheatley\u2019s innovative and thought-provoking ideas on resolving conflict, grounded in systems-thinking.<\/p>\n

A few weeks ago, I was mediating for an organization whose new CEO was being undermined by the former CEO who lives in close proximity to its employees. \u00a0The former CEO of 42 years led from a hierarchical, control style posture creating conflict throughout the organization. When the new CEO realized the source of the dysfunctional teams he was leading, he tried to do what Michael Watkins, author of\u00a0The First 90 Days<\/span>\u00a0<\/em>suggested: \u201cTransitioning leaders should \u00a0. . figure out how things work. Can people talk openly about difficult issues without fear of retribution? Are they conflict-avoidant? Or even worse, push it to lower levels, where it can wreak havoc?\u201d[8]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0 To his dismay, the new CEO discovered the havoc. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

By the time we met for the mediation between the New and Former CEOs, I had already mediated with four other teams, so I was acutely aware of the source of conflict:[9]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0verbal abuse ladened with blame from the former CEO. \u00a0After each man expressed his highest hope for the mediation, the intense labor of life giving birth to itself with two powerful forces began:<\/span><\/p>\n