Can Work Cultures Be Places of Peace?

At the end of last year, I was interviewing a young girl for an open position at our company. About halfway through the interview, she posed a hypothetical question to me regarding conflict. She asked, “If I was having an issue with another employee and I came to you for advice or to help resolve it, how would you handle it?”

I could tell it was a bit of a leading question. She wasn’t necessarily asking how people in our culture handle conflict. If she was, she wouldn’t have worded it the way she did. What she really wanted to know was whether I, as a leader, would step in on her behalf to “cover” her.

“If you need time to think about it, you can come back and answer later,” she offered.

I jumped right in, “Oh, I don’t need time to think about it. I would handle it the way Jesus taught us to handle conflict, which is to have the offended party directly address the offender. So, I would start by asking you if you had already tried bringing your offense to this person directly. If you hadn’t, I wouldn’t continue the conversation with you. I would walk you down to this person and have you start there. Nine times out of ten, you won’t need leadership to get involved.”

She stared at me blankly. I’m not sure whether she was surprised that a leader was refusing to offer a “covering” or that I had just mentioned Jesus in an interview. Either way, I made it impossible to misunderstand me: our team handles conflict the right way, which never involves looping someone out, even in the name of “needing advice”.

It’s remarkable how applicable the conflict resolution passage in Matthew 18 is, even within the workplace. It’s something I’ve clung to in my leadership and it has yet to steer me wrong.

“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church.” (Matthew 18:15–17a, ESV)

So, imagine my delight when I happened upon a story in the life of Moses that was almost an exact mirror of this principle.

Moses led an incredible life. Starting from the time he was three months old, his life was one awe-inspiring story after another — a sea miraculously parting to create a way of escape, the ground manifesting divine bread to feed the hungry, water gushing from a rock to quench the thirst of thousands, and God himself inscribing His commandments into stone.

Yet, sitting quietly between all these miracles is an ordinary, unassuming conversation between relatives. It’s an easy one to breeze past unless you’re willing to read in between the signs and wonders.

Exodus 18 tells us the story of Moses’ father-in-law, Jethro. He comes to town for a visit to hear all the Lord has done to free the Israelites from Egypt. On his second day in town, we’re told Moses sets up a place to sit in the middle of the camp, and spends from morning until evening hearing disputes and resolving conflicts among the people.

Jethro takes the day to observe this and later that evening, he pulls Moses aside to ask him why he does this all day. After Moses has had a chance to explain, Jethro warns him that this not good for the people, nor is it scalable for him to bear such a heavy load on his own.

As an alternative, Jethro offers up a wiser, three-tiered approach to better train the Israelites in finding solutions to their problems. If you want to read the exact text, it’s in chapter 18, verses 19–23, but I’ll nutshell his advice here for you:

1. Equip the People

Jethro tells Moses, first and foremost, to equip the people to handle the majority of these matters themselves. Moses knew the Lord intimately, but he was hoarding the knowledge of God’s desired standards, acting as a sort of moral vending machine for the people to come to every time they required clarity. Jethro implored him to release this knowledge and understanding to the people and to train them to discern for themselves.

2. Emancipate the Power

Now, Moses had years of earned influence with the Israelites, but Jethro’s second challenge to him was to emancipate the power of conflict resolution to the people. In other words, he says to take the authority he currently holds and set it free down the ranks by appointing trustworthy and right-minded leaders among the people who can judge the small matters. If you want to learn more about raising up leaders, come back and read my article on the titleless king who proved every worldly approach to leadership wrong.

3. Escalate the Problem

Lastly, if a matter still cannot be resolved, Jethro advises Moses to stay available for these greater issues to be escalated to.

The most beautiful part of his advice, though, is what he says in verse 23, which is my words translated from the original Hebrew:

“If you do this, you will endure and these people will be conditioned for peace.”

A Culture Conditioned for Peace

Let’s take what we’ve learned from Jethro and Jesus and dive deeper into the scenario posed by our young interviewee. If you’re a leader, you probably have sensitive matters brought to you all the time. When those matters involve another party who is not present, the next decision you make as a leader is critical.

Leaders everywhere wrongly assume it’s their responsibility to actively manage conflict between people, just like Moses was doing. They think they’re doing right by meeting with each individual to get the full story, then passing information back and forth about what the other party may have done or how they may be feeling. They think it’s their duty to be the middleman and play peacemaker, but this couldn’t be more damaging or unhealthy, and as we now know, it’s certainly not Biblical.

Leader, if you haven’t experienced this yet, it’s only a matter of time. People will come to you with concerns about someone else in the name “wanting advice”, when what they really need is either the humility to forgive and move on or the courage to address someone directly. Do not take away their opportunity for growth by indulging in fruitless advice-giving or worse, going to bat on their behalf.

Leaders are not third-party advocates. They are impartial and direct advocates of each individual in their purview. They don’t fight someone else’s battles in the name of protection. They equip people to fight for themselves in the name of growth.

I’m happy to hear someone out, validate their feelings, and show empathy for the hard situation they’re in, but that’s about the extent of my involvement. These conversations will all end the same way, and that is with me gently reminding them that the decision is theirs to either forgive and move on or to take their offense to the offender directly.

The reason the average work culture is rife with so much drama and gossip is because the people in leadership have ignored the most basic, Biblical tenets of conflict resolution. They encourage this damaging, circular chatter and use escalation as the first line of defense. These behaviors will inevitably lead to secrecy and exclusion, which will always sow discord.

“Do not hastily bring into court, for what will you do in the end, when your neighbor puts you to shame? Argue your case with your neighbor himself, and do not reveal another’s secret.” (Proverbs 25:8–9, ESV)

“Whoever covers an offense seeks love, but he who repeats a matter separates close friends.” (Proverbs 17:9, ESV)

There are plenty of other wrongs and missteps we deal with as leaders with which to be long-suffering about, this is not one of them. Yes — *gasp* — I am telling you to put a limit on this virtue in this very specific instance. Design your tolerance for gossip and poor conflict resolution to be very low. Love your people to the ends of the earth by addressing it immediately and cutting it off quickly.

Here are the two challenges I want you to walk away with today. First, don’t be the sole arbiter of your organization’s values. Talk about them often and teach people why they were chosen as the standard. Empower people to “know the way in which they must walk and what they must do”, as Jethro says.

Lastly, resist the temptation to “rescue” people from the tough conversations they need to have directly with their offenders. Support them as any good leader should, but do not withhold their growth from them.

If you do these things, you will endure as a leader and you will condition your people for peace.

*There are obvious caveats to this approach to conflict resolution. My writing has assumed minor, everyday troubles between teammates. I’ve not addressed egregious errors such as stealing from the company, sexual harassment, or other similar illegal transgressions. Proceed at those ends of the spectrum with your best judgment.