The great leader from bible Nehemiah was truly a godly leader and each and every one of us should learn a lot from his leadership techniques.
Conflicts should never be put aside whether a small or a large one, it should be immediately addressed. Otherwise, it can spread like a wildfire and engulf everything on its path. In case of a conflict, I basically would try to manage it by taking the leadership role as practiced by Nehemiah to resolve the conflict among the riches and the poors in Israel. First of all, I would try to find the root causes of the conflict and then talk to the respective parties privately as suggested by Nehemiah. Secondly, I will wait for the outcome of my private meeting, and even if the issue is not addressed then I would raise my concern in public and try my best to resolve the problem in a peaceful manner possible.
I think conflict is necessary for the society to evolve into more developed form. It is necessary to get rid from the evil people around the world. For instance, Hitler would have continued his crime against humanity if there was no conflict which eventually led to second world war,thus causing his downfall. But conflict always does not bring in the good result. For this we can take an example of Rohingya muslims displaced from their homes in Myanmar because of conflicts between the buddhists and the muslims.
So, it needs to be addressed on time by showing the characteristics of a godly leadership as in the case of Nehemiah. The toughest conflict I had ever faced in the workplace was the dispute between the staffs and the management regarding the payment issue. Most of the staffs were against the management’s decision of increasing the salary only by 10% and the conflict was not addressed on time which resulted in huge turnover with almost all the staffs resigning from their post and even myself.
But if I look back at the situation, I think we could have done much better in resolving the issue. Although our anger against the management was righteous, we should have discussed privately with the management and removed misunderstanding which might have settled the disputes. Instead of taking our problems to the management, we talked behind their back which I felt was a blunder from our side. Although all the leadership concept given in the article are equally important in order to be a good leader, however, for me the most important process to resolve conflict is not ignoring the problems and addressing it in the best way possible. To address the issues, leaders must show patience, self-control, and courage.
