The Leadership Opportunity

Leadership and Conflict: Interwoven Threads

In every sphere of life—home, work, family, and especially the church—leadership really matters.
As we all know, leadership is hard, but it is perhaps most challenging in those moments where leadership and conflict intersect. If you’re a leader, you often sit at the center of conflict—those times when tension surfaces in a leaders’ meeting, when you are managing a difficult change, or when the angry couple is sitting in your office.

And leaders don’t just see other people’s conflicts—at some time or other, every leader has inadvertently caused a conflict through an unpopular decision, poor communication, or even one careless word. Even in the healthiest churches, conflict and leadership are interwoven threads.

The Leader’s Response
When conflict threatens to shake the foundations of your church, wise leadership can hold your church together, creating a solid structure that can withstand the forces of damaging conflict. However, all too often, leaders default to worldly solutions by avoiding or attacking, and they end up standing by as the building crumbles. Compounding this problem is the recent unhealthy infiltration of corporate thinking into church leadership—the “results over relationships” approach may sound good, but it actually adds to the damage.

Conflict provides an opportunity for the church leader to respond in a way that is markedly different—living out the gospel of Jesus Christ in those critical moments when conflict and leadership intersect.

A Biblical Alternative

While many worthwhile resources on leadership exist, The Leadership Opportunity stands alone in addressing this distinct area of conflict and leadership. Based on over 25 years of work with churches and church leaders and as part of a larger family of resources for churches, The Leadership Opportunity is a solidly biblical resource, providing highly practical help for the common conflicts that all leaders face. It was created by church leaders for church leaders, and it will help any church lay the solid foundation of leadership needed in order to build a culture of peace.



FREE copies of a promo DVD introducing this resource are available at the associational office.