"Facing Feelings in Faith Communities: A Q&A with William Kondrath"
The Rev. Dr. William “Bill” Kondrath is the author of Facing Feelings in Faith Communities (Alban, 2013), the co-editor of the Journal of Religious Leadership, and a consultant and trainer with VISIONS, Inc. He has done consulting and training in more than a hundred Jewish and Christian congregations around the world.
He recently answered questions about his research and his passion for helping communities of faith explore the place of emotion in their life together.
Q: What is the importance of facing our feelings?
There are two main reasons.
First, our feelings give us important information about what we need as individuals. In Facing Feelings, I describe six emotions that affect us regularly. Each invites a reaction. Sadness tells us that we have experienced, or are anticipating, a loss. It invites us to grieve and to seek comfort. Fear tells us that there is a real or imagined danger and that we should seek protection, support, or reassurance. Anger tells us that we have experienced a violation of boundaries or expectations. It invites us to set limits or to renegotiate expectations. The feeling of peace is about being centered, connected to God, self, and others, and invites us to remain focused, and connected. Power or agency is about competence and ability. Though it doesn’t sound like an emotion, it is the feeling I have when I am about to do, or have just completed, a difficult task. Agency is like The Little Engine that Could — it invites me to foster my own competence and to empower others. Joy is feeling of gratitude, awe, and wonder that invites me to relish happiness and share it as appropriate.
But it’s not just personal understanding that’s important. Our feelings also clue other people in to what we are experiencing and what we may need. When we express our feelings in ways that are congruent with what we are experiencing — when we are emotionally transparent — our communication is clearer and more direct. And this enables us to build and deepen our relationships.
Q: From your research, what have you learned about why people do not face their feelings or why people are incapable of articulating them? What are the consequences of that — both personally and organizationally?
I believe our emotional software has the capacity to work properly. Infants are clear in their expressions of feelings, and we most often know from what they express, even without words, what they need. But that changes as we get older. Parents and siblings (and later teachers, clergy, and other adults) tell us that certain emotions should not be expressed, and over time, we learn to substitute a more acceptable feeling for the one we are experiencing.
That can have severe unintended consequences. On a personal level, it can be psychologically harmful. When we substitute, we don’t receive what we want or need in return. For example, when we substitute the expression of sadness for our experience of anger, we may receive comfort instead of a renegotiation of boundaries or expectations. Not allowing the expression of the full spectrum of feelings also stunts the development of community.
I should underscore that it’s important that feelings be expressed in culturally appropriate ways. Physical and emotional violence, shame and blame, are not the same as letting someone know that I am angry.
Q: How can faith communities help us learn to articulate our feelings? How can leaders of congregations support that work?
One way is to foster conversation in safe spaces.
Faith communities can read about emotional competence and invite their members to talk about their family histories of expression and prohibition of feelings. Men and women can discuss how gender influences the experience, expression, and prohibition of various feelings. Church boards can ask which feelings are more likely to be valued and which feelings are least likely to be welcomed. Bible study groups can ask what emotions are being expressed in the passages they are studying. The Psalms are rich in the expression of the entire spectrum of feelings. The e-book, Congregational Resources for Facing Feelings, discusses how various groups and ministries would operate more effectively if they took feelings seriously. There are chapters on church boards, children’s formation and worship leaders, teens and youth ministers, bible study groups, newcomers, stewardship planners, and congregational consultants.
It’s also important to practice these skills. Leaders and committee chairs can be emotionally transparent and foster the expression of feelings in meetings. They can model the belief and practice that cognitive and emotional competence are necessary for making sound decisions, for achieving buy-in, and for building community.
Q: What do you most hope that people gain from this book?
Feelings receive a bad rap in much of North American society. Leaders are accustomed to asking people: “What do you think?” and “What should we do?” The emphasis is on cognition and behavior. I hope Facing Feelings in Faith Communities and Congregational Resources for Facing Feelings will give people the tools to build emotional competence and make it more acceptable to acknowledge feelings along with their cognitive and behavioral skills.
I often tell people in anti-racism and anti-oppression trainings that the barrier to greater equality and liberation is not poor thinking, but blockage that comes from being afraid, angry, or sad. When we know our emotions, trust them, and learn to hear and respond to the emotions of others, we will see major advances in our works of social justice and the restoration of equality and dignity. Emotional competence and emotional transparency are doorways to deeper relationships across differences and keystones in building the beloved community.
Read more Monday, December 7, 2015
Facing Feelings in Faith Communities is based on a simple premise: We have emotions because we need them. God created us as affectively competent beings, author William Kondrath argues, to help us understand our world and to give appropriate signals to people around us about what we are experiencing. But because we are underusing or misusing our emotional capacities, we are missing out on the opportunity to express our full humanity.Facing Feelings in Faith Communities invites us to imagine how we would live differently if our emotional expressions were more congruent with the situations and events we encounter.
Buy the book »
ORDER TODAY AND SAVE
35%
Just use code RLWEB3515 when ordering online or by phone to save 35% off on any of our in-stock print titles and eBooks from now until December 31. Shop online or call us at 1-800-462-6420.
To learn more about the sale, visit the Rowman & Littlefield website.
Offer expires 12/31/2015. Discount cannot be combined with other special offers and only applies to purchases made directly from Rowman & Littlefield. Ebooks must be ordered online and cannot be combined with print orders.
Continue Your Learning with The Church Network
Webinar: Tax and Legal Update -- Contributions
featuring Frank Summerville
December 10 at 2:30 p.m. EST
As hearts and minds turn to holiday parties, church leaders' thoughts will turn to year-end giving. Understanding the laws and reporting requirements for contributions are a critical task of church finance.
Learn about a new proposed regulation (REG-138344-13) regarding a new voluntary IRS form that churches may file to confirm contributions.
Verify your compliance with reporting requirements and appropriate timing.
Give the proper response to those postdated checks.
Learn how online giving is affected by timing.
Review non-cash contribution reporting.
Hear the latest on year-end stock and IRA gifts.
Consider whether BITCOIN could be in your future.
Ask your specific questions about all things contributions.
Uncertainty about reporting requirements is enough to spoil a good punch bowl of eggnog... but clear understanding can bring added holiday joy.
Learn more and register »
Ideas that Impact: Leadership and Emotional Intelligence
---------------------
"Emotional Intelligence and Leadership" by Stephen Ott
Why do so many cognitively intelligent pastors and other leaders flounder, while many of lesser intelligence enjoy success? The widespread push for achievement in the 20th century often asserted the basic importance of cognitive intelligence, yet we see that people with high IQs are not always successful in relating to spouse, parents, or offspring; dealing with people at work; or living well and happily in a demanding world.
The concept of intelligence was scarcely mentioned in psychology books until the late 1920s. An early researcher in the field, David Wechsler, wrote in 1940 about the nonintellective factors in general intelligence. Although he went on to concentrate on the cognitive branch of intelligence research, he recognized the importance of noncognitive aspects of general human intelligence. Howard Gardner in 1983 expanded Wechsler’s concept of general intelligence and wrote of “multiple intelligences,” and specifically of “personal intelligence.”
The exploration of personal intelligence—involving self-awareness and interpersonal and emotional competence—represents another direction and branch of psychological research. It is from this lineage that Reuven Bar-On (who coined the phrase Emotional Quotient [EQ]), Daniel Goleman, and others write, examining successful functioning in the workplace and in interpersonal situations, clarifying how applications of EQ lead to excellence in performance. They have explained why some people are able to exercise emotional competencies to make a profound positive difference in their work and in their organizations, while without it others stumble.
Traits and Competencies
Bar-On defines emotional intelligence as “an array of non-cognitive abilities, capabilities, and skills that influence one’s ability to succeed in coping with environmental demands and pressures” (paper presented to the American Psychological Association annual meeting in Chicago in 1997). It is commonly agreed that emotional skills and intelligence develop over time. They modify and can grow throughout life, tending to peak in one’s 40s; they can be taught through skills training and therapy experiences. It is important to distinguish between an inborn trait, like perfect pitch or a sharp sense of taste or an aesthetic sensibility, and a competence like that of a composer, a chef, or a painter. The competencies build on existing traits, but are the result of focused training, learning about applications, and practical experience. Competence is a valuable set of skills and habits that lead to more effective performance, and to a greater likelihood of success.
Learning Emotional Competence
According to Goleman, some research indicates that emotional competence matters twice as much as raw intelligence or technical know-how in contributing to outstanding performance in work (Fortune, Oct. 26, 1998, p. 293–298). Strong technical knowledge and intellectual ability, coupled with high emotional intelligence, are thought to characterize a person well along in the process of self-actualization. Scoring high in emotional intelligence does not automatically make a person superb at work or in relating to people; it means he or she has a high potential to learn the emotional competencies needed for outstanding performance. In a subsequent article, Goleman indicates that emotional intelligence has a genetic-nature component, along with the nurture-learning that accumulates with age and experience. How much of each is a factor is not known, but research demonstrates that while each individual has different capacities for growth and adaptation, emotional intelligence can be learned (Harvard Business Review, Nov.-Dec. 1998, p. 93–102).
Research indicates that the thinking part of the brain learns differently from the emotional part. The centers for rational thought are located in the neocortex, the thin layer that covers the top of the brain. It learns by adding new information to the existing networks of association and understanding, thus expanding them, depending to a high degree on sensory input in visual and aural form. But learning an emotional competence engages our emotional circuitry, involving our social habits and emotional memories. These are located in the limbic structures, deep in the middle of the brain, with the amygdala playing a key role. It is the site where emotions and affective memories are stored. Neural circuitry runs from the limbic system to the gut, giving new meaning to the term “having a gut feeling.” Learning emotional competence involves a process different from that of learning multiplication tables. The limbic system learns by repetition, experimentation, and practice, all of which involve emotion. It takes a limbic connection to change an emotional skill.
Going to a lecture or a typical training program on interpersonal competence isn’t likely to get the job done, for people won’t automatically know how to apply and practice emotionally what they have heard, and the lessons have been aimed at the wrong part of the brain. Many of us have gone to workshops and brought home great materials in notebooks that were never looked at again. EQ isn’t about information; it is about taking information and combining it with motivation, self-awareness, and vision, and striving for a new application, a new way of living. Emotional learning involves growing new pathways at the neurological level, not just adding more input to the existing (status quo) web. New ways of living, responding, and understanding oneself involve creating new circuits and replacing older, less adaptive ones.
EQ and Leadership
Emotional competence is crucial to the leadership role. Leadership is closely linked to helping others accomplish their tasks efficiently and to building confidence, satisfaction, and productivity among employees or volunteers. Problematic leadership lowers the morale and productivity of the work group and has a negative impact on individuals in the group: it blurs the focus on accomplishing tasks, raises frustration and hostility levels, decreases group cohesion and cooperation, and contributes to lowered motivation and loyalty to the organization. The effects of chronic distress on individuals in such environments may include increased distractedness and a permanent dulling effect on intellectual functioning.
Unskillful leadership also contributes to lowered retention rates of valuable workers or volunteers, and to a loss of customers and thus lower profits. Reuven Bar-On suggests that EQ is emotional and social intelligence, concerned with the ability to understand oneself and others, to relate effectively to people, and to adapt to and cope with one’s immediate situation—in the process increasing one’s ability to deal successfully with environmental demands. Leadership based on these self-aware abilities and skills uses active self-management and empathy, aiming at relational management, which in turn can catalyze needed cooperation and resonance in organizations. “Resonance,” in organizational terms, is the joining together of people in a vital common mission and in cooperative anticipation of their shared future.
The Making of Visionary Leaders
Visionary, innovative leadership is built spiritually on a sense of vocational calling in one who exercises self-awareness and congruence with one’s deepest motivating values. Such leadership is both cognitive and emotional in its wisdom; it is based on core motivating values. A new idea or insight needs people of emotional competence to refine it, initiate it, and put it into effective practice and follow-through. People can lose their calling by just doing the same thing over and over, failing to hear changes in their dreams and values as they move through cycles of life and vocation. Awakening to one’s spiritual values and one’s source of hope and renewal are of paramount importance to becoming a visionary leader whose skills and character join hands. It is an example of emotional intelligence vocationally focused.
Many denominations today are aware that a significant proportion of their churches have plateaued or are losing members, a complex political, social, and religious trend measurable for more than 40 years. More than half the congregations of the American Baptist Churches are in this situation. Identity and ministry are being challenged by a more secular society whose new generations show a decreasing interest in denominational life. Fewer church leaders now have the confidence that they know how to lead congregations effectively in mission and servanthood during such a time of change.
Pastorally managing an organization that has been stable and orderly in the past, and has avoided the chaos of drastic change is a job far different from leading an organization, which involves working with the volatile changes and shifts of the present. Leading sometimes requires inoculation of the organization’s system to increase a sense of urgency to address needed change, as well as an ability to remain steadfast in the face of the resulting conflict and stress. Average EQ skills are unlikely to be sufficient to transform a “stuck” congregational system, which may resist the change it needs.
Training for Renewal Ministry
Among American Baptists in the northeast there is a new program built upon the anticipation (“prolepsis”) of God’s calling the church into renewal and vitality for the future. The Nehemiah Leadership Network (NLN) is a cooperative program of 10 American Baptist regions that nurtures and encourages visionary pastors who choose to lead congregations in renewal. The program identifies candidates with a high potential for success with renewal ministry, and helps them to develop the spiritual vitality, emotional maturity (EQ), and leadership skills needed for leading congregations in renewal. Such pastors attend a vocational evaluation program at the Center for Career Development and Ministry in Dedham, Massachusetts, aimed at measuring the extent to which the pastor has the leadership traits and skills for revitalization work. The center and the pastor devise an individual plan for learning, strengthening and deepening the integration of the pastor’s emotional intelligence, leadership training, and spiritual grounding in a transformation ministry.
As the meltdown of old denominational forms continues, and the importance of teamwork, cooperation, and collegiality increases, the need for superb people skills grows in ministry leadership. Learner-directed, the NLN is one form of church renewal, providing an appropriate environment for the experimental, repetitive learning required for focusing on emotional growth and self-actualization (EQ). These experiences are combined with systems knowledge and change theory, interdependence and mutual learning in a small group, and a vital personal spiritual practice.
Read more »
---------------------
"Emotional Intelligence and Effective Conflict Management: This Pair Can Make or Break Your Leadership" by Chris Gambill and Molly Lineberger
---------------------
"Your Emotional Intelligence Reading List" compiled by Stephen Ott
---------------------
Visit Alban.org
---------------------
"Emotional Intelligence and Effective Conflict Management: This Pair Can Make or Break Your Leadership" by Chris Gambill and Molly Lineberger
I was a young pastor, conscientious, concerned for my congregation and the unity of our church. So on that Sunday afternoon when John, an experienced deacon, showed up at my home unannounced, my antennae went up.
John’s agitation and dire message concerned me. He described a conflict within our congregation and insisted that it must be dealt with immediately. With a knot in my stomach, I jumped up from my chair and hurried to the phone. I called an emergency meeting of the deacons for that very evening.
At the meeting, I described this alarming conflict to the rest of the deacons. To my utter surprise, each one assured me that there was no problem. The “great conflict” I had been told about was actually quite minor. My worry turned to relief when I realized how I had overreacted, then to embarrassment as I began to back out of the “emergency” I had created.
The problem was that I had not corr-ectly gauged John’s emotional state and had taken his word for how others were feeling. I also failed to manage my own emotions well enough to think about the situation I was facing. Like most pastors, I was unschooled in both emotional intelligence and conflict management.
Today I serve as a church consultant and I am never surprised by the presence of conflict. Conflict in any church is inevitable, and it can make or break a congregation. Handled well, it can actually be constructive—helping congregations to become healthier and stronger. Handled poorly, it can result in schism and breakdown. Keeping conflict constructive requires emotional intelligence and effective conflict management skills—two areas around which most ministers have received no training. Two areas that can make or break a leader.
Emotional Intelligence—Key to Ministry
Whether during times of conflict or harmony, the majority of ministry is set within an emotional context. Knowing how to perceive and use emotion (i.e., having emotional intelligence) has a huge impact on an individual’s ability to form and maintain effective relationships. It also plays a vital role in how we respond to and manage conflict. Emotional intelligence is crucial to good leadership. Some experts believe it is a better predictor of life success than IQ. The good news is that, unlike IQ, emotional intelligence can be improved with training.
Until the last decade or so, emotion was generally seen as a detriment to intelligence, decision making, and leadership. That view is rapidly changing and today emotion is increasingly considered highly useful information that effective leadership requires. So just what is emotional intelligence? According to John Mayer and Peter Salovey, who defined it in 1997, emotional intelligence is “the ability to perceive emotions, to access and generate emotions so as to assist thought, to understand emotions and emotional knowledge, and to reflectively regulate emotions so as to promote emotional and intellectual growth.”1 To put it simply, emotional intelligence is using emotion to help us cope with our environment successfully.
There are four components of emo-tional intelligence: perceiving emotions, facilitating thought, understanding emotions, and managing emotions.
Perceiving Emotions
Before we can use emotions to help us be successful in our environment, we must be able to recognize and identify emotions in others and ourselves. The more we are open to emotions, even the ones we are uncomfortable with, the more information we have to cope with life situations. Though emotions are difficult to hide, they can also be difficult to read. Different individuals have varying capacities for perceiving and using emotions. One way we perceive emotions is through facial expressions. Paul Eckman, a pioneer in the area of emotional intelligence, identified seven basic emotions that look the same on people of all cultures: happiness, sadness, surprise, fear, rage, contempt, and disgust. Body language and voice inflection are two other cues to another person’s emotional state.
Facilitating Thought
Emotion can support the kind of thinking or action we need to carry out. When clergy use emotion to deliver an effective sermon, emotion helps convey a message. If you want your congregation to address an injustice, you want them to feel anger. If your church is launching a building campaign, you want them to feel energized and expectant.
Happiness is the most helpful emotional state for creativity. An upbeat, energized environment with music and snacks is great for big-picture ingenuity. Have you ever been in a committee session intended for creatively solving a problem while you sit in a dreary basement meeting room at 5:00 in the afternoon? The task will feel overwhelming. On the other hand, if you need to check a budget line-by-line for errors, better to be in the more subdued environment.
Understanding Emotion
Most of us could stand to broaden our emotional vocabulary. Do you just feel good today, or are you actually content, joyful, or feeling enthusiastic? When we name emotions and know their causes and consequences, we can read a situation more accurately and know how to respond appropriately. Emotions are temporary, complex, and changing, and they involve our bodies as well as our minds.
The better we are at understanding emotion, the better we can predict the emotional future. Emotions come in sequences. One we’ve all experienced is this negative slide: Someone starts out irritable, something happens and he becomes annoyed, something else happens and he becomes frustrated, then upset. The situation escalates and he becomes angry, then furious, and finally enraged. If we know the sequence, we may be able to head things off at the irritable or annoyed stage and avoid the rage. Conversely, there are sequences to positive emotions that are worth knowing and promoting, such as the progression from calm and content to happy and joyous. Emotional intelligence involves getting a handle on an emotion in yourself or others and knowing how it can combine with other emotions or stressors and progress.
Managing Emotion
Managing emotion is the fourth component of emotional intelligence. It is the ability to be open to both pleasant and unpleasant emotions and to modulate them in ourselves and others to promote personal understanding and growth.
A friend of mine serves as a pastor in Blacksburg, Virginia, near the site of the horrific shootings at Virginia Tech two years ago. As he stood to preach for the first time after the shooting, he needed to call upon all of his emotional intelligence resources. He had to consider his own emotions and those of the congregation and how to respond to them. When we see emotions as useful information and as having a predictable sequence, we can welcome them, using them to bring hope, console, inspire, and motivate.
A pastor who has been with the family of a dying baby and who, an hour later, must speak to the church youth group about their upcoming mission trip, must recognize and cope with his or her low emotional state. He or she might wisely decide to hit Starbucks for a change of scenery and a double latte. Some upbeat music, prayer, or a call to an encouraging friend might also be helpful in creating a more appropriate emotional state. Before he or she can speak positive words to encourage and excite the youth, the pastor’s emotions must shift from sadness to optimism and anticipation. Thought influences emotion just as emotion influences thought. The more we know about emotions, the less likely we are to be hijacked by them or to become victims of our own emotional states.
Conflict Management—
Choose Your Style CarefullySo how does emotional intelligence help us manage conflict? There are different styles of conflict management. The key to handling conflict well lies in knowing these styles and when to use each one. Most experts agree that there is no best conflict management style. Good leaders vary their mode of conflict management according to circumstances. The effectiveness of each depends upon the situation at hand. That is where emotional intelligence comes in. It helps us to read a situation and decide which conflict management style to use.
According to the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument, there are five conflict management styles—competing, accommodating, avoiding, collaborating, and compromising—which involve various combinations of assertiveness and cooperativeness. Jesus himself used each of these five styles during his own conflict-filled ministry.
Competing is assertive and uncooperative—a power-oriented mode wherein an individual pursues his or her own concerns at the other person’s expense. Jesus took this route when he cleansed the temple. You might use this when standing up against an injustice, as when a staff member is unfairly treated.
Accommodating is the opposite of competing. It is unassertive and cooperative. Here an individual neglects his or her own concerns to satisfy the concerns of the other person. Jesus was accommodating when he appeared before Pontius Pilate. Your accommodating might take the form of giving in to another’s desire for a meeting location or time. This can be a good way to build trust and goodwill.
Avoiding is unassertive and uncooperative. The individual who is avoiding does not address the conflict and so does not immediately pursue his or her concerns or those of the other person. Jesus demonstrated this style in Luke 4:29, when, after reading the scroll in the temple and declaring himself the fulfillment, he was taken to the top of a cliff in order to be thrown off by an angry mob. Jesus simply walked through the crowd and left the scene. Your avoiding might be to postpone a discussion for a week in order to let emotions cool off.
Collaborating is the opposite of avoiding. It is both assertive and cooperative. It involves working with the other person to find a solution that fully satisfies the concerns of both. Jesus collaborated when he fed the five thousand by taking the loaves and fish brought by the disciples and multiplying them. You might collaborate by exploring a disagreement with another to learn from the insights each of you brings to the situation, or by confronting another to try to find a creative solution to an interpersonal problem. Collaborating requires high trust between parties and is time consuming, but it would be the best approach to a major decision, such as whether or not to purchase or construct a new church building.
Compromising is the intermediate in both assertiveness and cooperativeness. Here a mutually acceptable solution is sought to partially satisfy both parties. Jesus compromised when he was asked whether it was right to pay taxes to Caesar: “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s” (Matt. 22:21 NIV). You might compromise by splitting the difference or seeking a quick, middle-ground position. For a conflict that is not critical to your church, like room décor, compromise would be appropriate.
Most people have a preferred style of conflict management and many have a consistent fallback—for example, competing and then leaving or avoiding. Each of the styles is effective in the right context, but it is not productive to use the same style in every situation. When a minister says to me, “I let everyone know what I think. I don’t play games,” in effect he is saying that his preferred mode of conflict management is competing. While this may be best for a number of situations, it will spell bad news for other situations in which the minister refuses to back down. Conversely, a minister who always compromises or accommodates will not be a prophetic leader. How can one lead if he or she is afraid to disagree?
Anyone who consistently finds him- or herself in irresolvable conflict should consider that his or her repertoire of conflict management skills is probably too narrow. The goal is to know which approach is most helpful in a given situation and then to develop the capacity to implement that approach. That is where emotional intelligence comes in. Emotional intelligence helps an individual to more accurately read a conflict and then decide which style to use and how to use it most effectively.
Raising Your Emotional Intelligence
Though it comes more naturally to some individuals than others, emotional intelligence can be improved with practice. Want to get better at perceiving emotion? Go to the mall with a colleague who reads emotion well, then people-watch and talk about what various individuals’ facial expressions and body language might mean. After an emotional meeting, talk to another staff member about what he or she perceived to be going on. If you are not good at reading people emotionally, do not guess. Instead, ask, “How are you feeling?” To get better at using emotion to facilitate thought, before you or a group embark on a task, think about what emotional state would be most helpful. If the task changes, you may need to take a break and do something to shift the emotional state. To understand emotion better, write an emotional story or journal about your feelings and the events and thinking that affect them. Journaling can be helpful for managing your own emotions. Personal coaching can also help increase emotional intelligence. To further manage your emotions, stay healthy—watch your diet and exercise.
Managing Conflict Better
Ministers should start working on emotional intelligence and conflict management when times are good. The question is not whether you will have conflict but when.
Once you have raised your functioning emotional intelligence, you can monitor your handling of conflict. That ability can be improved as well. It helps to become familiar with the five conflict management styles described above and to think about which one you generally use. Then imagine situations when that mode would not be the most effective. Imagine how a conflict might change and require that you alter your conflict management style. After a conflict, talk to a coworker, reflect, or journal about how you acted, what worked or did not work and why. Identify the other party’s emotions and conflict management style and your response.
Personal coaching can help anyone to handle conflict more effectively. Paying for one-on-one coaching is likely to be more cost-effective than paying consulting fees after a conflict becomes destructive. It is a smart way to invest in a leader and in the long-term health of a congregation. The business world has embraced personal leadership coaching; the church is just beginning to do so.
Effective leadership involves a capacity for both emotional intelligence and effective conflict management. Although I do more consulting around conflict, if asked which is the more important skill for ministry, I would have to say that emotional intelligence is the bigger of the two. Ministry involves relationship (even in conflict there is relationship) and emotional intelligence is essential to relationship. Without emotional intelligence, it is nearly impossible to manage conflict effectively.
Read more »---------------------
"Your Emotional Intelligence Reading List" compiled by Stephen Ott
Bar-On, Reuven. Development of the Bar-On EQ-i: A Measure of Emotional Intelligence. A paper presented at the Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association in Chicago, 1997. Available from Multi-Health Systems, www.mhs.com.
Bar-On, Reuven. Bar-On Emotional Quotient Inventory: Technical Manual. (Toronto: Multi-Health Systems, 1997).
Boyatzis, Richard E., et. al. “Clustering Competence in Emotional Intelligence: Insights from the Emotional Competence Inventory (ECI).” In The Handbook of Emotional Intelligence: Theory, Development, Assessment, and Application at Home, School, and in the Workplace. Bar-On, Reuven, et. al. eds., 343–362. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000).
Gardner, Howard. Intelligence Reframed: Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century. (New York: Basic Books, 1999).
Goleman, Daniel, et. al. Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence. (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2002).
Goleman, Daniel. Working with Emotional Intelligence. (New York: Bantam Books, 1998).
Goleman, Daniel, et. al. Harvard Business Review on What Makes a Leader. (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2001).
Gowing, Marilyn K. “Measurement of Individual Emotional Competence.” In The Emotionally Intelligent Workplace: How to Select For, Measure, and Improve Emotional Intelligence in Individuals, Groups and Organizations. Cherniss, Cary, et. al. eds., 83–131. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2001).
Salovey, Peter and Sluyter, David J. eds. Emotional Development and Emotional Intelligence: Educational Implications. (New York: Basic Books, 1997).
Read more »---------------------
Visit Alban.org
STAY CONNECTED
---------------------
Alban
---------------------
Alban
312 Blackwell Street, Suite 101
Durham, North Carolina 27701, United States
----------------------------
----------------------------
No comments:
Post a Comment