Restoring Team Unity: Four Key Questions to Overcome Conflict and Find Peace
School is back in session, and work rhythms have returned both in our home and our local community. This season also brings new challenges as we learn to balance our responsibilities.
Your life is made up of a series of teams. We go from meeting to meeting at work, then shift into new obligations in the community, whether through sports, volunteering, or serving at church.
You will face relational challenges this year on one of your teams—or you might be emerging from a season filled with conflict and drama at work. Remember, your life isn’t defined by just one team. It’s a complex web of teams, roles, and responsibilities. Which of these questions resonates with you right now?
- Do you go to sleep dreading the upcoming team meeting?
- Is your family life anxious and frantic—your marriage, your kids?
- Are you secretly dreading the next board meeting or off-site strategy session?
- Are you struggling to lead a “toxic” team member into transformation?
- Do you desire for the core team in your marriage to be more unified and moving in the same direction?
You are not alone. The four-step process below can help.
Leading a divided team requires resilience, clarity, and courage. We live on the edge of offense, division, anger, jealousy, and rage daily. Unprecedented levels of anxiety, stress, and mental health challenges are taking a toll on the teams you lead. We might be tempted to blame the division in our country, our football teams, our churches, or even in our homes. But often, the conflict your team faces isn’t really about the issue at hand. The true struggle lies deeper, within the hearts of your team members—far beyond any quick fix.
An unhealthy team doesn’t just impact the bottom line; it creates emotional turmoil, leaving a wake of unseen damage that breeds more anxiety throughout your organization or home.
Jesus warned about the great harm division can cause in a house or kingdom (Matthew 12:22-28). There’s a big difference between seeking unity and seeking uniformity. Jesus wasn’t striving for uniformity or even unity; He was inviting people into a closer relationship with Him and a way of life as He intended, ultimately to be in complete unity with him.
If you’re facing conflict and longing for peace, here are four primary questions to ask yourself. These questions are based on the Restoration Therapy and Coaching model I use with clients to help them find emotional balance and embrace transformational behaviors.
1) How am I coping in this relationship?
- Anger
- Anxious
- Nagging
- Minimize
“I am acting out in anger…”
2) What do I feel in this situation?
- Alone
- Hopeless
- Insecure
- Failure
“I feel hopeless right now…”
3) What truth will I choose to believe?
- Loved
- Accepted
- Known
- Connected
“I will be known…”
4) What will my new response and action be?
- Vulnerable
- Peaceful
- Empathic
- Trustworthy
“I will reveal the authentic me with vulnerability…”
The division you’re currently facing—or may face—on any of the teams in your life comes down to understanding what is yours to do and what is yours to own in the relationship. Healing a divided team takes work, energy, and effort. The four steps outlined above are just the beginning. Leaders must be willing to model these behaviors for their teams to move from futility to flourishing. If you need help fostering unity in one of your teams, feel free to email me.
One final question for deeper healing in your team starts with you:
How much access does Jesus have to your heart right now?
Are you willing to give Him the space to bring wholeness and healing?
A house or kingdom divided cannot stand, but His invitation is simple: be united with Him in the life He designed for you.
