Conflict management starts with a leader’s attitude. Read Matthew 5:43-45.

Jesus was teaching His disciples some truths that were (and still are) counter cultural. In what many consider His most famous sermon He called His team to be different, to see the world from God’s perspective, to relate to people in a supernatural fashion, and to develop a God-like attitude rather than to accept the popular worldview. With these words, “You have heard that it was said, ‘love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven,” Jesus challenged a culturally accepted norm held by virtually every leader on earth.

How a leader sees the team determines how that leader treats the team. Read Malachi 2:10.

The questions in verse 10, “Have we not all one Father? Did not one God create us? Why do we profane the covenant of our fathers by breaking faith with one another?” If answered seriously, these questions would shape how a leader sees their team and change the leader/follower relationship in virtually every case. Seeing your teammates as God’s creation, a person He personally designed with specific talents and gifts to serve at your side in a team situation will definitely change both the leader and the teammates’ behavior toward each other and the team.

The Christian leader’s performance should be so distinctively positive that it demands an explanation. Read Malachi 1:6-14.

The book of Malachi is the last book in the Bible’s Old Testament. Malachi was a prophet to the people living in Judah and Jerusalem about 70 years after the return from the Babylonian exile and about 440 years before Christ was born. After Malachi spoke to the people for God there was a period of silence for over 400 years until John the Baptist came on the scene. Malachi prophesied during a period of corrupt priests, wicked practices, and compromised leaders. He called the leaders to account for ignoring God’s standards of excellence.

Effective leaders connect with their team before they correct their team. Read Malachi 1:1-14.

The name Malachi means “Messenger of Yahweh.” Malachi was the last prophet to bring the Hebrew people any message from God until John the Baptist brought God’s word to the Jews approximately 400 years later as the forerunner of Jesus. Malachi uses an easy to follow question and answer format to address issues such as divorce, infidelity, hypocrisy, tithing, false worship, complacency, and arrogance. Even though Malachi had a difficult message of the changes the leaders needed to make to please God he made a connection with the people before he brought God’s message of correction.

Each generation of leaders must help the next generation understand that no matter how much power they accumulate they are still accountable to the One True God. Read Nahum 1:1-10.

Just a little more than a century before Nahum’s prophecies, Jonah had taken God’s demand for repentance to the Assyrian capitol of Nineveh. The king and all the leaders had responded immediately by humbling themselves before God and God spared them from destruction. That generation failed to leave any legacy of humility or repentance and the nation returned to the wicked treatment of people that first brought God’s wrath. Unfortunately, children and grandchildren cannot inherit spiritual life so the attitude of repentance was not automatically passed on to the next generation of leaders.