Confrontation is not
easy. Not for most people at least, which is a good thing: people who lick
their chops at the thought of a good set-to are the last people who should be confronting
anyone.
My job involves the
occasional confrontation. Happily, not often; maybe three times in the fifteen
years I’ve been supervising. In our office, the kitchen is the best place to
chew someone out when you absolutely have to. It’s open and accessible so that nothing
is done behind closed doors, but far enough from the troops that nobody hears
what you’re saying — unless you intend them to.
At least that’s the
way I choose to do it. I’ve never liked the practice of running to upper
management when I have issues with the behavior of employees who report to me.
Not at first, anyway.
That’s a principle I
get from Matthew’s gospel. The Lord Jesus is of course describing a completely different situation — I don’t have “brothers” at the office to “win” in precisely the sense he is talking about. But the way the Lord instructs
his disciples to deal with a sinning brother is useful and can be broadly and
effectively applied. If I had to sum it up, I’d say he tells them to start
small and ramp it up slowly. That way the situation only gets as bad as the
sinner insists on making it.
Escalating Too Fast
Jordan Peterson talks about the problems with going nuclear when confronting someone about behavior you’d like to see changed:
“You’re having an argument … and you say, ‘You’re a stupid person, and you’ve always been a stupid person, and as far as I can tell — as far into the future as I can see — you’re going to remain a stupid person.’
So what are they supposed to do? What are they going to do when you say that? They’re going to cry — like, if you mean it. They’re going to get angry if you mean it. And they don’t like you very much.
And why is that? Well, it’s like … you haven’t left the person anywhere to go. You’ve gone right to the top of their hierarchy and said, ‘Everything about you is wrong; and worse than that, all the mechanisms that we could use to correct it won’t work.’ Those are fighting words. So don’t do that unless you want to have a fight.”
Been there, done that, and it doesn’t end
well. So I try not to do it anymore.
Getting Granular
I don’t know that Peterson’s advice is based on the Lord’s words in Matthew; I rather doubt it. But
I think it’s consistent with the laudable goal of resolving problems rather than making them worse:
“So then you might say, ‘Well, what would you do instead?’ And the answer is deliver the least amount of information you possibly can … you’ve got to specify the routine that you want transformed at the highest possible level of resolution, and you want to recommend the minimal necessary change that will satisfy you.”
Sounds prudent to me. Attack the problem
rather than the person, and try to keep it in perspective. Thing is, we always
seem to go to one extreme or the other: either turn up the volume to eleven
right at the outset, or avoid the problem entirely.
And I suspect more of us are avoiders than natural
confronters.
Impediments to Straight Talk
A variety of things can make confrontation
tough sledding. A sense of one’s own shortcomings and historical failings will
certainly do it. But there are plenty of others.
In one instance I was dealing with an out-and-proud
gay man who had announced that previous attempts to curtail his abuses were “orientation-based
discrimination” and would result in a trip to Human Resources. Not fun. Happily
the facts were inarguable: he’d cheated significantly on his timesheet, he’d
done it in front of me, and he knew it. Playing the gay card wasn’t going to
work for him, and he didn’t even try it. I informed him politely that I had
unilaterally amended his timesheet and any further liberties with numbers would
result in a trip down the hall to see our manager. We never had another problem.
Another time, the guy I was correcting had
been very friendly and the temptation to let his behavior slide on the basis of
accumulated goodwill was significant. But other people were being affected, and
something had to be done. It was awkward, but it worked.
The third was a well-intentioned but
aggressive woman who had started giving direction to her own shift lead and
everyone else she worked with. In retrospect that one might have been better
with a witness lurking distantly …
In short, all confrontations come with
risks, which tends to explain why we prefer to avoid them.
Elders and Confrontations
Why bring this up here? Well, yesterday’s
post from Immanuel Can encouraging men to consider the work of an elder made me
think about the confrontational aspect of leadership. It’s there, and it’s hard
to avoid. So let me take one more kick at the can on the subject of elders.
Being able to confront others is not
precisely a qualification for leadership, but it is a critical part of the job.
Paul tells Titus of the elder that:
“He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.”
The qualification, if there is one here, is
holding firm to the word of God. But it’s not enough to know what you believe
and be able to declare it when asked, or even to teach it regularly. Sometimes
it is necessary to “rebuke those who contradict it”.
Not Quarrelsome But Kind
That doesn’t mean elders should be
aggressive about going after troublemakers. The Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind, as Paul tells Timothy. And again, to Timothy, “not quarrelsome”. That’s pretty clear. Good church leaders are never spoiling for a fight or
taking pleasure at the prospect of telling someone off.
But whether they are violating sound doctrine in word or deed, men and women in the church who “contradict” sorely need dealing with. That, or else the Body of Christ at the local level will suffer injury. Paul does not recommend letting such things slide. The job needs to get done somehow, and
done both firmly and clearly. A line needs to be drawn without equivocation
even if the change expected is only the “minimal necessary”, and even if that
line is drawn in fear, trembling, awkwardness and much discomfort.
Probably better if it is — there’ll be
more prayer involved.
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