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Welcome to Episode 251 of the Non-Anxious Leader Podcast. I'm Jack SchItama. Before I get into today's episode, I realized that many of you may not listen to the very end of the podcast. And that's where I tell you where you can contact me. And so I'm going to start doing it at the beginning. If you want to get in touch with me, you can either go to thenon-anxiousleader.com, and you can fill out the contact form, or you can email me at jack@christian-leaders.com. And if you are not subscribed to my two for Tuesday email, you can get that newsletter by also going to the website and signing up. Every Tuesday, I send out a newsletter with recommendations about things that help me to grow as a non-anxious presence and hopefully will help you. Now, without further adoe, here is episode 251, non-anxious leaders encourage healthy disagreement.

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The idea for this week's episode comes from an inc.com article by Justin Bariso. Emotionally intelligent people use a brilliant two-word phrase to speak up and get results. And that brilliant two-word phrase is healthy disagreement. I often say that effective leaders say what they believe while giving others the freedom to disagree. This encourages healthy disagreement. Healthy disagreement occurs when people are able to self-differentiate. They speak their minds while respecting others. They distinguish between another person's idea and the person themselves. They disagree without being disagreeable. And yet, surrounding togetherness pressure makes healthy disagreement difficult. Borezo cites research by psychologist Solomon Ash that revealed that up to 75 % of people will go along with the group's decision, even when that decision makes no sense. Emotional connection is what keeps groups together, whether they are families, congregations, or organizations. We need emotional connection. However, when the pressure to agree is too great, you get groupthink. There is no room for dissenting ideas or new ways of thinking. This may provide for a stable culture, but it is likely to keep things stuck. Mainline congregations have faced decades of dwindling attendance and decreasing relevance. Yet, countless leaders have encountered togetherness pressure when they've tried to engage people in new ways of thinking and doing.

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Whenever you hear, We've always done it this way before, you know that healthy disagreement is not welcome. According to Bariso, "Healthy disagreement is the ability to openly, honestly, and respectfully present an opposing opinion, and instead of simply going along with what's presented. A culture of healthy disagreement improves the quality of a team's work by exposing the flaws and singular ways of thinking. Healthy disagreement also promotes innovation and helps teams avoid groupthink." This is self-differentiation. It's the ability to be a self, remain emotionally connected, and allow others to be themselves. It's self definition combined with healthy emotional connection. Solomon Asher's research took place in the 1950s, and there's some dispute among researchers as to whether people are as likely to conform to the norms of the group today. However, there are two things about Asher's experiments that make sense to me. First, the larger the group, the more likely someone was to conform to a consensus opinion, even if it was clearly incorrect. This makes sense to me, as I have seen this occur in congregational and organizational situations. Perhaps the consensus was not clearly incorrect, but it was also clear to me that people were afraid to speak up, and even I was afraid to speak up in certain situations.

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Second, Ash found that when even one person disagrees with the group, the number of people who conform to the group consensus drops significantly. This points to why cultivating a culture of healthy disagreement is so important. If you want the system you lead to be open to new thinking and innovation, people have to be willing to speak up even when there is pressure to conform, and this starts with the leader. From a family system standpoint, we can look at two responses that are not healthy disagreement. The first is what I've been describing, going along with the group. This is adaptivity. It's not standing up for what you believe in. You might call this unhealthy agreement. The second is reactivity. It's disagreeing in a defensive or aggressive way. It's unhealthy disagreement and will likely precipitate a conflict of wills because you are forcing others to either agree or disagree with you. Their response to your emotionality will almost always be to push back. Then you are stuck and the system is worse off than before. Instead of being focused on where things are headed, the system is focused on the conflict of wills. The good news is that in last week's episode, I went through a process to repair a reactive reaction.

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So even when you respond in this way, you can reopen the conversation and move away from unhealthy disagreement toward healthy disagreement. So if creating a culture of healthy disagreement is important for a family, congregation, or organization, how do you do this? Creating a culture of healthy disagreement requires that you, as a non-anxious leader, model the desired behavior. This means being willing to speak up when you disagree. Of course, as Bariso notes, don't disagree just to be contrary. That's not helpful. I know that sometimes I do this with my wife, though much less often than I used to. I may not be reactive, but I'm also not making sense. I'm pushing back just because I want to be my own person. I can usually tell early on that I'm being an idiot, and then the only question is how to get out of the situation. In worse times, I'll get in a fight and stomp off. In better times, I'll just say, You know what? You're right. A sentence never ends with a period. It always ends with a comma. It's never too late to admit that you're wrong. One way to tell whether you should speak up, according to Brieso, is to ask yourself, If I don't say this, will I regret it later?

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This is a form of emotional intelligence where you're bringing together both self-awareness and social awareness. You're reading the room, but you're also getting clear on what you believe and deciding if you need to speak up. That's self-differentiation. Once you've decided to speak up, both what you say and how you say it matter. The latter is also basic emotional intelligence. It requires social awareness. How can you say what you think in a way that respects others and their opinions even when you disagree? The important part of this is to create healthy emotional space. I like to preface using statements such as, I may be wrong about this, or, You don't have to agree with me. This makes it clear that you are defining yourself and not others. The goal is to say what you believe while giving others the freedom to disagree. This leads to what you say, which should be focused on defining your own position without criticizing the positions of others. When you say what you believe without trying to tear down another person and/or their position, it is much more likely that the conversation will be productive. Finally, when appropriate, make it clear that your position is focused on the mission of the system and is not self-serving.

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This not only makes it clear that you are mission-focused, but it also creates healthy emotional space for others to share what they think will move the mission forward. And when I say mission-focused, you might think that this only applies to congregations and organizations, but it's also true for families of origin. The challenge is to think about what really matters and to have conversations about it. For example, how do we want to care for an aging parent? What does it mean to teach values to our children and what are those values? How involved do we want to be in our grandchildren's lives? There are no right answers. Every system is different. You might not end up with a mission statement, but you are likely to have healthy discussions that will provide clarity for everyone. I'll say it again. Effective leaders say what they believe while giving others the freedom to disagree. This is true for families, congregations, and organizations. So go be yourself. That's it for episode 251. And thanks to all of you who reached out to me and congratulated me on episode 250. I just blew through that one without making any mention of it.

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But it is great that I've been able to be able to do this with you and for you for nearly five years now. It's coming up on the five year anniversary. So again, you can connect with me at the non-anxiousleader.com or email me at jack@christian-leaders.com. Until next time, thanks and goodbye.