Managing Followers in Conflict

On this episode of The Lead On Podcast, Jeff Iorg, president of the SBC Executive Committee, discusses practical approaches for managing conflict within ministry teams. He highlights biblical examples and offers concrete principles for leaders to anticipate, address, and resolve interpersonal conflicts in ways that protect organizational unity and refocus teams on their mission.

Creators and Guests

Host

Jeff Iorg

President, SBC Executive Committee

What is Lead On Podcast?

Ready to hone your leadership skills and unlock your full potential? Tune in to the Lead On Podcast, where Jeff Iorg dives deep into Biblical leadership.

Hosted by SBC Executive Committee President Jeff Iorg, this dynamic podcast provides insight for seasoned executives, aspiring leaders, or those in ministry who are simply passionate about personal growth. The Lead On Podcast offers actionable, practical tips to help you navigate the complexities of ministry leadership in today's ever-changing world.

From effective communication and team building to strategic decision-making and fostering innovation, each episode is packed with valuable lessons and inspiring stories to empower you on your leadership journey.

Put these principles into practice and Lead On!

Jeff Iorg: 00:54

Welcome to the Lead On podcast. This is Jeff Iorg, the president of the executive committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, continuing our conversation about practical issues related to ministry leadership. Today on the podcast, I wanna talk about a troubling but very common problem, managing followers in conflict. Now, I mean by that is managing people who are having conflict with each other in a ministry you're leading are under your direction. This is not about managing people who are in conflict with you, that's a different podcast.

Jeff Iorg: 01:31

This is about managing situations where people you're leading are in conflict with each other. I'm talking about two deacons who get crossways. I'm talking about two ladies who get upset about something related to ministry. I'm talking about people on your staff who don't like each other and who find themselves struggling with their relationship, when your followers are in conflict. Now, are several examples in the New Testament about early church conflicts.

Jeff Iorg: 02:06

First of all, there's an example in Philippians chapter four of two women, Euodia and Syntyche, who were having a difficult time. Paul said these were partners in the gospel, people who'd contended for the faith at his side. These were apparently significant women with a strong commitment to the Lord and his mission, but somehow they got crossways with each other. And Paul wrote and said, partner, helped these women to find a way to agree in the Lord. Meaning that the leader had some responsibility for trying to facilitate a reconciliation that would then restore these women to fruitfulness in ministry.

Jeff Iorg: 02:45

That's one example of two church members, if you will, that were in conflict. Sometimes those conflicts can be, among employees that are having conflict with each other. Now, there's no real one to one correlation in the Bible, in relationship to employees as we know them today in Christian ministry organizations, but there are patterns and examples. There are Old Testament examples of kings and and leaders, who had people working with them and around them who found themselves in conflict with each other. There are certainly examples in the New Testament where people were in leadership over someone and found themselves to be dealing with conflicts between those followers.

Jeff Iorg: 03:27

I just think about some incidents in my past. I once had a situation where I had two employees that had incredible relational conflict, so much so that I thought I was going to have to dismiss one or employee or the other. But before I did that, I had an opportunity to separate them and, reassign them to some different work and different work relationships, and both of them thrived. And I realized that for whatever reason, these two just simply could not work together. And that was an example of two employees in a conflict with each other.

Jeff Iorg: 04:05

I had another situation once where I had an employee that was told by their supervisor to to lie to the organization. And when we found out about that, we had to step in and deal with that. But now these two employees got in conflict because the one felt like they'd been misrepresented, the other one felt like they'd been outed or lied about. It was not a happy time. And then another kind of conflict that can arise is leadership teams or people that are trying to work together can wind up having conflict.

Jeff Iorg: 04:33

Probably the most well known one of these is the is the story of, you know, Barnabas and Paul going out on mission and then going through all the things that they went through together. And then, John Mark coming along and going with them on a trip and then abandoning them in the middle and then wanting to go again. And Paul and Barnabas had a great conflict, it says in Acts chapter 15 over this issue. And finally, Paul just threw down the gauntlet and said, I'm not going with this young man no matter what. And Barnabas said, that's fine.

Jeff Iorg: 05:06

And they say separated over this. And think about that. The the most dynamic ministry team, the most dynamic missions team, Paul and Barnabas separated over a conflict over something that happened on their team. And and this conflict between leaders like this can can take some epic proportions. In Galatians chapter two, there's this dramatic story of Paul and Barnabas having this unbelievable conflict over the the nature of salvation and the table fellowship and circumcision and all those things that related to that.

Jeff Iorg: 05:38

All I'm trying to say is that you can look in the Bible and you can see followers in conflict. Church members having conflict, what we would consider employee employer conflict, leadership or ministry team conflict. These are the things that sometimes go on, and as leaders, we are responsible to respond to it in the healthiest way possible. So let me give you some suggestions now about what to do to more effectively manage followers in conflict. Number one, anticipate the problem.

Jeff Iorg: 06:16

Whether you want to admit it or not, problems among your followers are inevitable. When it comes to conflict among followers, expect it. Now, this doesn't mean you're negative or pessimistic. It just means you're realistic about the dynamics of human relationships and organizations. People are occasionally going to get crossways with each other.

Jeff Iorg: 06:44

It is inevitable. And when you accept this reality and you plan for it both organizationally and perhaps more importantly, emotionally, it will help you to handle your response and to make a much more measured and effective response. There are

Jeff Iorg: 07:05

a couple of common reactions to conflict among our followers. The first, anger. It's

Jeff Iorg: 07:15

easy to get angry because of lost time that you have to devote to the problem, lost productivity, if they're employees, and the damage the conflict causes as other people in the organization either choose sides or otherwise impacted. But anger like this is always counterproductive because, James one twenty says, man's anger does not accomplish God's righteousness. So being angry about a conflict situation that's thrust upon you isn't productive. Another

Jeff Iorg: 07:47

common response is anxiety. Now, my blood pressure still skyrockets when people around me are in conflict. I I can't I I can't lie to

Jeff Iorg: 08:01

you today and tell you that when I see people in conflict around me, it doesn't bother me. It does. I want people to get along. I don't want to have to deal with the conflict and the difficulty that brings. It it caused me to feel anxious in the moment,

Jeff Iorg: 08:18

but I found my anxiety, my worry didn't solve the problem either. So instead of anger or anxiety, I wanna challenge you to prepare to deal with conflict with patience, poise, and peace. Patience, poise, and peace. Let those three p's replace those two a's of anger and anxiety. Now, when people are in conflict in your ministry organization or in your in your church, a measured deliberate response from you has a remarkable effect

Jeff Iorg: 09:00

on the conflict situation. It diffuses the intensity and helps people gain fresh perspective. When they see that you are not overwhelmed with anger or anxiety in the moment, but because you've anticipated this problem knowing that it eventually would come, and when it did, you are predetermining that you're going to respond with patience and poise and peace, then it sets the stage for conflict resolution.

Jeff Iorg: 09:27

Now conflict among followers should prompt you to pray, to work the process, and to strive toward peace.

Jeff Iorg: 09:38

You know, Paul said in Philippians four, six, and seven, really one of the hardest verses there is for me in the Bible, don't worry about anything. Let your request be made known unto God, and the peace of God which surpasses every thought will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. I, few years ago, talked openly about my level of anxiety caused by organizational conflict and by relational tension around me. And I preached a message on it actually in chapel and pretty transparent, but also made some fun of me of myself and of my situation. The next day I came to work, and the IT department at the seminary had created a new screensaver and put it on my computer.

Jeff Iorg: 10:20

It was a man sitting in a darkened room with his head in his hands, and it said at the bottom, be anxious for everything. Hesitations, four six. And I thought that was one of the funniest things that ever happened really for me. To see that screensaver, it just so crystallized the struggle I have. Anger and anxiety.

Jeff Iorg: 10:42

No. Peace, poise, patience, working a process to bring people to a resolution. Now, anticipate problems. That's step one. Step two,

Jeff Iorg: 10:58

facilitate appropriate confrontation. Now, probably the most well known passage of scripture about conflict resolution in the Bible is in Matthew 18 verses 15 through 17. You probably know this passage pretty well. It says, if your brother sins against you, go and rebuke him in private. If he listens to you, you've won your brother.

Jeff Iorg: 11:20

But if he won't listen, take one or two more with you so that by the testimony of two or three witnesses, every fact may be established. If he pays no attention to them, tell the church. If he doesn't pay attention even to the church, let him be like an unbeliever or a tax collector to you. Now that's instruction that's particularly applicable in church context, But I have not always worked in a church context. I have worked as a in a state convention context.

Jeff Iorg: 11:48

I've worked in a seminary context. Now I work in

Jeff Iorg: 11:50

a national convention context. What do you do when you have these principles that are laid out in Matthew 18 and you have to apply them in light of your state's human resources laws? Well, let's talk about that. Rather than looking at these verses and saying, how do you apply them word for word, let's see if

Jeff Iorg: 12:16

we can learn how to apply them principle by principle, especially in context where we go out of local church governance structure. So here are four principles that emerge out of this text. Principle number one, when a follower has a relational

Jeff Iorg: 12:33

conflict, he or she must work it out with the person with whom they are having the conflict. Principle number one, when a follower has a conflict, they need to work it out with the person they are having conflict with. Principle number two. When followers can't work out the conflict using principle number one, they should involve a small number of appropriate people to help solve the conflict.

Jeff Iorg: 13:03

This can mean they bring in a a supervisor. It can bring they might even bring in an HR person.

Jeff Iorg: 13:11

They bring in someone that's appropriate to help them resolve the conflict. Principle three. When followers can't work out a conflict using principle one or two, they should then and only then take the problem to a higher authority, like the senior pastor or or like the

Jeff Iorg: 13:33

president. Taking the problem to a higher authority is an escalation if principles one and two don't work. And then principle four, when a conflict can't be resolved, definitive action by appropriate authority to end the conflict is in order. Now, let's walk through these principles and talk about them and maybe make some more application of them. So a follower reports a conflict with a fellow church member or a fellow employee or someone like that, the first question should be, have you talked with a person about this conflict, and what are the two of you doing to resolve it?

Jeff Iorg: 14:15

Have you talked to the person, and what are the two of

Jeff Iorg: 14:18

you doing to resolve it? In a number of instances, I've had people say, no.

Jeff Iorg: 14:22

I I wanted to talk to you first.

Jeff Iorg: 14:24

And I say, I understand, but you're trying

Jeff Iorg: 14:26

to turn your problem into my problem. It's that time honored principle of taking the monkey off your back and putting it on mine, but we're not doing that today. So I wanna challenge you to go have a direct conversation with the person you're in conflict with and see if the two of you can't work it out. And it is amazing, especially in ministry organizations or churches, how often this is productive. Where there's been a misunderstanding or there's been something that was done that was maybe even unintended, but two people talking together get it worked out.

Jeff Iorg: 14:59

Then you say, well, what if that doesn't work? Then you apply the second principle. And the second principle is you take it to a small number of appropriate people to help resolve the situation. You say, well, who might that be? Well, it might mean in a church context that you involve a trusted elder or a deacon or other leader or even a mature Christian friend.

Jeff Iorg: 15:17

It might be in an employment situation that you go to an immediate supervisor, or maybe in some cases where you'd have to bring in maybe an HR person if that's needed. But you're escalating it up one notch. We've talked this over, and we can't seem to work it out. We're bringing in a supervisor or an elder or an HR person. We wanna tell them the situation.

Jeff Iorg: 15:37

We wanna ask them to give us some guidance on helping us work out this problem. Then you say, well, what if that doesn't work? Well, then that escalates it up to the third principle, and that is to the higher authority. Now, of course, in the Matthew 18 passage, it talks about dealing with things, taking it to the few people, and taking it on up, you know, to the church and taking it to a higher authority. And that certainly can sometimes happen.

Jeff Iorg: 16:05

But remember that we wanna resist going there too quickly. You know, when you're the president or the senior pastor, you you wanna reserve your judgment and your final authority and your final solution for problems that weren't able to be solved at a lower level. And in fact, you wanna keep, if you can, from having to bring that big hammer, if you will, to the situation. So if possible, work it out between you. If not, work it out with a counselor or supervisor or or an HR person.

Jeff Iorg: 16:37

But then if it needs to come to a higher authority, then it needs to come to the higher authority. And usually in ministry, the highest authority is usually vested in a senior pastor or an executive officer or maybe a governing board or even in some cases, the church. But remember, you wanna avoid that if possible by forcing people to try to resolve things before they get to that level. Don't escalate a conflict too rapidly. Give people ample opportunity and actually even required opportunity

Jeff Iorg: 17:10

to try to work things out before it gets to that point. It's

Jeff Iorg: 17:14

so important to do this because when a conflict gets to a senior leader or in a church to a governing board or ultimate resolution or by whoever is the ultimate authority, the consequences can be and often are severe. When a conflict reaches this level for resolution, you know, church members may be disciplined, including being removed from membership. Employees may be reprimanded, demoted, penalized, terminated. So be careful not to allow what I call molehill problems to require mountain sized solutions. It's important to keep things in perspective.

Jeff Iorg: 17:51

Press people to resolve conflict themselves. Press people to resolve conflict with their supervisor, HR person, deacon, elder guiding, and helping with the process. But when conflict finally comes to you as a senior leader, have the courage to take definitive action. If a church member has to be removed, then you

Jeff Iorg: 18:12

have to do it. If an employee has to be disciplined, you you have to do it. You can't recoil from the responsibility that you have in the moment.

Jeff Iorg: 18:22

There are times when a leader has to take definitive action to resolve a relational conflict, to stop inappropriate behavior, to remove a person with an uncompromising or an unforgiving spirit, or or even to take other drastic action to end relational conflict and move the church forward. Listen, that's a painful process, but healers must sometimes inflict temporary pain. Injections prevent disease. Surgery removes cancer. Stitches close wounds.

Jeff Iorg: 18:50

All these things are part of healing, but they all inflict pain as part of

Jeff Iorg: 18:55

the process. The treatments are painful, but they're necessary for long term health. So

Jeff Iorg: 19:03

don't fail to fulfill your responsibility. Just make sure that it gets to you slowly and that you do that very carefully. So anticipate problems and then manage the confrontation appropriately by working through these four principle steps that we've just described. A third thing you can do is to minimize collateral damage. Minimize collateral damage.

Jeff Iorg: 19:29

Now another contribution that you're making to this recovery process is to minimize the damage that this may do to the larger organization. Now, again, you have to have realistic expectations. Conflict, particularly open conflict that reaches this kind of critical phase where it requires either resolution by a supervisor or an HR person or deacons or elders, or then it ultimately comes to you as the final authority or to your board or to your church or to

Jeff Iorg: 19:55

your governing group, there's going to

Jeff Iorg: 19:57

be some negative impact. You can't make it all go away, but you can mitigate it. You can minimize it, and you can do that with some simple steps. First, communicate essential facts about the situation that resulted in this situation being resolved. But after you've communicated the essential facts, say as little about it as possible and move on from the situation as quickly as possible.

Jeff Iorg: 20:22

When your decision is final and implemented, stop talking about it. Stop talking about it, period. This was a discipline I had to learn as a younger leader. I would find myself wanting to continually explain my decision to more and more people to try to justify more and more what had happened or give more and more explanation for it, and I discovered that I

Jeff Iorg: 20:43

was simply talking myself into an ever deepening hole, if you will. And I learned that the best response is to say, this conflict has been addressed. We have resolved it to my satisfaction, and we are now moving on, and stop talking about it at that point. Now, when you do this, you communicate to your

Jeff Iorg: 21:09

followers, not you can't know anymore about this, but there's nothing more that can be said about this that's productive. You know, your followers assume that what you talk about is important to you, so change the subject. Address the subject. Don't don't pretend it didn't happen. Address the subject, and then

Jeff Iorg: 21:29

move on.

Jeff Iorg: 21:32

A second thing you can do to minimize impact is hold other followers accountable for their reaction to what may have happened. You know, if gossip erupts, confront it. If murmuring begins, stop it. If employees protest, hear their concerns, but reinforce your decision. Don't be afraid to say, I hear you, but that's all I have to say about this situation.

Jeff Iorg: 21:53

Or I hear you, but there's really nothing more that can be done about this matter. Believe me, I know how dissatisfying that can be to some people and how much they can continue to press you for more information, but you simply can't give it. We had

Jeff Iorg: 22:06

a conflict. The department has addressed it. Staff has worked through it. We've reached a resolution, and now we're moving on.

Jeff Iorg: 22:14

But but but but nothing. We have nothing else to say about this. We've resolved it, and now we're moving on.

Jeff Iorg: 22:21

Now, you

Jeff Iorg: 22:22

have to understand that people are going to struggle for a little while to get through what's been happening around them, but hold them accountable to get their focus moving forward and to move on from the conflict. And then another big part of this is refocusing everyone back to the mission of the church or the organization or the department or the class or wherever the conflict occurred, refocusing back on the mission that that group is supposed to be accomplishing. To help in moving past conflict, refocus on your mission, your purpose, your role. Get people busy working again on common tasks toward common goals and focusing on the future. This helps people put past conflicts in perspective.

Jeff Iorg: 23:07

Now, again, I'm describing you have a team, two people in that team get into conflict. They can't work it out between themselves. They go to their supervisor. They can't work it out there. It comes to you, and you finally have to make a decision.

Jeff Iorg: 23:20

There's a resolution. You determine that one person needs to

Jeff Iorg: 23:23

be moved off the team, you move them. Then you meet with

Jeff Iorg: 23:26

the team and say, we had this conflict. The conflict came to me. I made the best decision possible for the good of the team, and now we're moving on. Let's get refocused back on the youth ministry that we're responsible for. Let's get going.

Jeff Iorg: 23:38

Let's get refocused back on the recruiting of new students that we're responsible for, and let's get moving forward. That kind of closure, focusing again on

Jeff Iorg: 23:46

the mission, helps people move forward. Now you might say, okay, well, that's great.

Jeff Iorg: 23:53

But what if some of the residual impact is on me? In other words, what if you're struggling with the pain or the guilt or the disappointment or the heartache of

Jeff Iorg: 24:01

the situation? What do you do? Well, do not talk about it internally with your team or with your organization. This is where you need an outside person. You need a friendship team, as I've taught you about on other podcasts.

Jeff Iorg: 24:19

You need a mentor, a colleague, a peer, an everyday friend. You need some people in your life that you can go to, that

Jeff Iorg: 24:26

you have confidence in their capacity to hold information, that will tell you the truth and speak positively and honestly into your life. That's who you go talk with on these kind of issues. Listen, it's happened to me. I've had two church members or two employees in conflict,

Jeff Iorg: 24:45

and I've had to tell them to

Jeff Iorg: 24:47

work it out, they weren't, and they had to escalate it. That didn't satisfy anything, and it finally came to me, and I had

Jeff Iorg: 24:52

to make some hard decisions. Then I

Jeff Iorg: 24:54

had to interpret those decisions and refocus everyone on mission and walk away from that. When I was usually frustrated, I was usually disappointed. I was oftentimes still struggling with anger and anxiety that I talked about earlier in the podcast. And I needed more myself to get through what I

Jeff Iorg: 25:13

just lived through. And that's when I go in my office and pick up the phone, call a mentor,

Jeff Iorg: 25:18

and say, listen, I just need to talk for a minute. Tell you what happened and just debrief a bit. Or I would call a colleague at a school or another organization and say, have you got a minute? That kind of support is essential, and you may need it to help you manage the fallout of what's happened to you. But you can't get that from inside your own organization because if you do, you'll wind up revisiting the conflict, reopening the wounds, and can and causing more difficulty by what you're doing and trying to get the own your your own satisfaction in the moment.

Jeff Iorg: 25:51

So when you are facing conflict between people in your organization, first,

Jeff Iorg: 25:58

anticipate the problem. It's coming. It's inevitable. And rather than responding with anger and anxiety, discipline yourself to focus on those p words I gave you, patience, poise, and peace, and prepare to work a process that will lead to a resolution. Anticipate the problem.

Jeff Iorg: 26:20

And in anticipating the problem, you want to then use an appropriate process that has these four principles that I've just mentioned to you. Facilitate appropriate confrontation with this escalation. First, tell people work it out themselves. Second, if that doesn't work, let them bring someone else in, a supervisor, an HR person, a deacon, an elder, someone they all trust who can help them with the conflict. That doesn't work, then it gets escalated to a hired authority like a pastor or like a president like you or like me.

Jeff Iorg: 26:51

And then when it can't be resolved by any other means, definitive action has to be taken, and oftentimes you're the one who has to take it. So walk people through appropriate confrontation that moves along through these steps to resolve things as simply as possible, as soon as possible, involving the fewest number of people possible, and also avoiding, if possible, coming to the final authority and having more severe consequences take place. And then, of course, you gotta minimize the collateral damage or the overspill, if you will, of a conflict by doing some of the things that I just outlined here on the podcast. You know, managing followers in conflict is not easy, but it is a required skill for Christian leaders. We wish it were not so, but we are all still fallen people.

Jeff Iorg: 27:49

We all still struggle relationally and in other ways with different people that we try to work with in different capacities. We all hope our followers will always exhibit Christian graces and demonstrate unity in relationships. While that's our hope, we have to be honest and recognize that will not always be the case. Even our most most trusted followers and most mature partners, like those described in the Bible, can fall prey to some of these temptations that, lead them to behavior that really harms relationships and ultimately our organizations. So preparing to cope with followers and deal with these kinds of issues isn't a concession to diminish expectations or saying that you're gonna accept a lower standard.

Jeff Iorg: 28:34

It is instead a practical strategy for shepherding people

Jeff Iorg: 28:39

and for recognizing that people under your leadership will occasionally go through times of unseemly and unsettling behavior. And wise leaders prepare for the worst behavior among their followers while never losing capacity for their confidence that the best will also be demonstrated. So unfortunately, these kinds of situations will arise. But fortunately, we have some biblical patterns and some biblical principles that help us end the resolution. We work in complex times.

Jeff Iorg: 29:18

There are all kinds of employment expectations and legal requirements and other kinds of policies and procedures. But really, it just comes down to this. Help people work things out. Help people find someone else who can help them work things out. Escalate it if you must, make hard decisions when you have to, and then communicate all of this in a way that refocuses the organization on its mission.

Jeff Iorg: 29:47

Managing followers in conflict is a delicate, sometimes difficult part of ministry leadership. As I've said, it's an inevitable reality. Sooner or later, two people, maybe two that will even surprise you, will get crossways with each other and you'll have conflict among the followers or the people that you supervise or lead. When that happens, put some principles into bleed to the best resolution possible and then refocus on the mission and get moving again. Think about it.

Jeff Iorg: 30:17

Put it into practice. Work on it hard this week as you lead on.