Women’s Retreat Presentation, June 5, 2010: Success in Interpersonal Relationships – Part 2

Let’s continue with our teaching. Once upon a time there was a man sitting by the side of the road. A traveler passed by and said to him, “Excuse me, tell me, what are the people who live in this place like?” The man who was sitting there asked him, “What are the people like?” “Excellent,” he said. “The people where I come from are horrible, critical, and gossipy.” “Well,” he told him, “you won’t find anything different here. The people are very much alike.”

The man remained sitting there, and after a while another traveler came and asked him the same question: “Excuse me, what are the people in this place like? What kind of people will I find?” “You tell me, what are the people like where you come from?” “Oh! I come from a place where the people are kind, lovely, wonderful, gracious, charming, generous, and trustworthy.” “Well, you will find the same thing here.” Why is that?

Because the way we see ourselves is the way we will see others. And the way we see others is the way we will treat them. That is why a leader has to know herself. She has to know who she is, what she thinks, what she feels, and how far along the path she is. There is a deception that consists of thinking, “I believe I am living out what I know.” So what happens? I think I am all the way up here.

Suddenly a crisis comes, a difficult situation arises, and—oh!—what a surprise to see how I reacted. What a surprise! I saw that I was not up here; I was down here. Why? All crises do, all difficult situations do, is reveal the level we are at. They do not move us to another level; they merely reveal the level we are at. And the reactions we have will reveal the level I am at.

So knowing myself, looking at myself in a mirror, and knowing exactly where I am means not believing that because I know a lot, I am at the very top. Every woman must have self-knowledge. That is fundamental. That is where leadership relationships begin. The way I see myself is how I will see others. If I am critical, I will see people as critical; if I am kind, I will see them as kind. That is where leadership relationships begin: with how I see myself. Very good.

What things do I need to know? I need to know what level of restoration I am at, because we are all at different levels of restoration. God begins by restoring enormous areas within us, those which, unless He restores them, prevent us from moving forward. But little by little, the restoration becomes finer. He lets us get away with fewer things. So what level of restoration am I at? I have not reached a level of total restoration.

We are going to spend our entire lives being restored. We go from glory to glory, from victory to victory, but we have not attained everything. We are on our way, and every day we need to be improved. Our inner person must grow even as the outer one wears away. I need to know how the past is influencing my life. We all have a past. Ecclesiastes tells us that “what has already been was, and what is to be already is.”

But I need to know how the influence of my past is still directing my life as a leader. Why? Because suddenly someone will come along and say one tiny thing, and it will feel enormous to me. Why? Why do I make a mountain out of a molehill? Because it connected with an area of the past that had not yet been healed. And if I identify it and recognize that something in the present touched the past and that it was the past that emerged, I will be able to surrender it to God and see it healed. How good it is that we can bring it to light!

But we need to know how we are doing with the past. If you are a leader, you will experience pain. And if you are a mother, you will experience pain, and if you are a wife, you will experience pain. So we need to know how we are managing pain. If we do not know how to manage it, pain can be devastating. Some pain is deep and intense, and we need to learn to manage the pain of leadership and our personal pain so that we can keep walking with the Lord.

Pain cannot stop us. We need to learn to manage it. We need to ask for whatever help is necessary, but we must not allow pain—which will enter our lives sooner or later—to stop us. Sometimes it comes with greater intensity and sometimes with less. This also brings us to unresolved conflicts. Unresolved conflicts are all those situations that we have done nothing to resolve. Yes, we are fighting, but it does not matter, and we keep going with the conflict unresolved.

But what happens when we have many unresolved conflicts? Before long, we are carrying the burden of all the conflicts we have not resolved. God does not want us to carry burdens. We need to bring our gestalts to closure. What does closing a gestalt mean? Closing a gestalt means progressively bringing emotional situations to a close. Sometimes we have an emotional situation with someone that we have not closed; the situation remains open. We have another emotional situation with someone else. We have open emotional situations in leadership, at home, and at work.

So what happens if we do not close them? If we do not bring them to an end, to a proper closure? We expend a great deal of energy on them, so we remain stuck. It is exactly like having things that we have not finished. I have some sewing left unfinished, a letter left unfinished, a book left unread. I begin sweeping the kitchen but leave it unfinished, then move on and sweep the living room but leave it unfinished; the entire house is left unfinished. The closet is half done—everything causes confusion, and it is the same emotionally. So when we have unclosed gestalts, we cannot have healthy relationships.

Then we must learn to navigate the cycles of rejection. We need to know whether we have been one hundred percent healed of rejection. We may be surprised to discover that we have not. It still bothers me when people do not greet me; we have not yet closed the cycle of rejection. It still bothers me when I am not invited. We have not yet closed the cycle of rejection. We are still taking certain situations as personal rejection. And when we live in cycles of rejection—people reject me, so I begin rejecting others—we end up with leadership and a team in which we all more or less operate with a certain degree of rejection, and we get nowhere.

Next, we need to be very clear about our level of self-acceptance. We have already looked at managing pain, unresolved conflicts, gestalt closure, and cycles of rejection, and I need to know what my level of self-acceptance is. Suddenly I am like the person in the picture, and when I look in the mirror, it seems that I have a slightly inflated opinion of myself. And if I think too highly of myself—in my country we say “the mother hen”—I will look down on everyone else.

My existential position will be, “I am fine, but you people…” And if, on the other hand, I have the notorious inferiority complex—if I think I am inferior, think I am stupid, or do not consider myself capable—it is actually the same as the superiority complex, only manifested differently. God does not want us to see ourselves as either greater or lesser. God wants us to see ourselves exactly as He sees us. And He is the best reflection. Asking Him means seeing myself with my abilities, my good qualities, my strengths, and my weaknesses. What for? So that I can surrender them to Him and keep them from affecting my leadership.

When I do not have a good self-image, what will happen? I will not ask for help, because if I feel worthless, I do not deserve help, and if I think too highly of myself, I do not need it. There are times when a leader has to ask for help. There are times when a leader has to learn and has to acknowledge that she makes mistakes, because we all make mistakes. We all fail. The problem is not failing; the problem is failing to correct the mistake and failing to learn.

And we can learn from those above us, from those at the same level, and from those under our care. We can learn from everyone, as long as we have a spirit that is open to learning. Very good. And now comes something extremely important: what is the state of my emotional maturity? I may be as old as I am—I will not tell you again—and have an emotional maturity that lags many years behind. Knowing my level of emotional maturity is important. Now, how do I discover it? I need to know that I have emotions.

Sometimes we believe that because we are very spiritual, have many revelations, and God speaks to us often—how lovely! How wonderful!—we no longer have emotions. But that does not change the fact that we still have emotions, and we need to accept it. What for? So that God can help us manage them. If we do not acknowledge them, we cannot surrender them to Him daily and ask Him to help us manage our emotions. Emotions will influence our relationships. As leaders, we need to decide what kind of leadership we want to have. Do I want emotional leadership, in which I allow my emotions to flow freely, or do I want spiritual leadership, in which the manifestations of the fruit of the Spirit will be seen?

Because the manifestations of the fruit of the Spirit are relationships: kindness, joy, love, peace, gentleness, and patience are relationships. It is as simple as that. I need to know what kind of leadership I have and what kind of leadership I want to have. Now then, there is such a thing as a basic emotion. We all have at least one basic emotion. Sometimes we have two or more. What is a basic emotion? A basic emotion is one that we have been dealing with intensely since childhood. All of us have experienced traumatic situations in one way or another.

All of us, in one way or another. If we have not actually experienced them, we have experienced them in our minds. But we have experienced them. When there is a traumatic situation, when there is pain, when there is something we cannot manage and do not know how to respond to, emotions arise. And if we do not learn to manage that emotion, it persists into adulthood. So it becomes the emotion, or the emotions, that I now have difficulty managing. Generally, the emotion we women have difficulty managing is anger.

We were not taught how to manage it, and generally we repressed it in childhood, so now we manage anger poorly. What happens to a leader who does not recognize that anger is her basic emotion and does not manage it? She will yell at everyone, in front of everyone, and no one wants to be near a leader who yells. No one wants to be near a mother who yells; no one wants to be near a wife who yells, an angry wife, or an angry leader. Why? Because we have not recognized our basic emotion.

So we may be repressing and repressing it, and suddenly one little thing connects us with it and—“Boom!”—we explode like a pressure cooker. Haven’t you seen those pots—Presto, I think they are called? I do not know anything about cooking, so I do not know whether they are Rinaweb or something like that. Then the pots go “Boom!” and explode. That is how we sometimes explode; and if we do not, we go on repressing and repressing our emotions until we become depressed. Sometimes the emotion we cannot manage is anxiety. That is why I bought the CD.

But we need to recognize which emotion we have been managing poorly. And do not tell me that you do not have one, because do you know how many emotions there are? There are 180 emotions, and sometimes there is a peaceful day, but at other times all 180 emotions decide to show up on the same day, and it is one of those stormy days when you pass through every emotional state and, at night, simply collapse onto your bed because you cannot take any more. One hundred and eighty emotions—do you realize that? And sometimes we say, “No, I do not have any emotions that I need to manage.” That is a lie. If we are human, I actually think there are more than 180, mind you. I am still leaving some of them out.

Another thing we need to recognize is our emotional triggers. What is an emotional trigger? We never identify those. Do you know what they are? They are those little words, those gestures, that tone of voice that, when someone uses them with us, instantly make us jump or become defensive. I know what my two emotional triggers are. Look, I am asking the Lord to continue working on that, because suddenly someone says two little words to me, and it is as though I “slam on the brakes.” Oh, Lord! Those are the triggers, right?

But if we do not know what our triggers are, we will react and blame the other person, when it is not the other person’s fault. They are my reactions; it is what I have failed to manage that is triggered by the other person’s words. Sometimes it is a gesture; sometimes all it takes is for someone to go “like this” and we jump, right? “That rubbed me the wrong way.” We need to know them, and a leader needs to know what her emotional triggers are; we all have them. And we need to recognize them so that we can surrender them to God.

We also need to know what our moods are. What are moods? They are those tendencies to feel a certain way emotionally, and sometimes we do not even know why. “Oh! Today I feel—I do not know—melancholy, sad, incredibly cheerful.” They are emotional states that were often learned in childhood, emotional patterns we have been learning. I have had to struggle a great deal with anxiety because I learned that emotional pattern.

In my home, anxiety was always treated as… a synonym for responsibility. So when I came to the Lord and they told me to cast all my anxiety on Him, I said, “Well, that is not responsible.” That is not how it works. The point is that we need to learn to manage those emotions, but we need to identify those learned emotional states. You see, sometimes I would begin to feel anxious for no reason. I had to say, “Olga, calm down. Take it easy, take it easy. Eat slowly; you are not going anywhere. No one is taking your food away from you,” and so on.

And I had to calm myself down, why? Because I had a learned pattern of being anxious and having moods that were not appropriate. What are emotions? Emotions are internal agitations produced by external situations, sometimes produced by ideas, sometimes produced by memories, which give us a physical reaction that will be more or less evident. Most of us show our emotions. We think we do not, but we do: through our gestures, our faces, our movements—in one way or another, we display all 180 emotions.

I have to be aware of the conflicts of the self—that is, the ego. The ego is what identifies me as a person. Sister, me, have an ego? Not anymore, since I have already been crucified. I do not believe that. There is still a lot of that. The trouble is that I do not see it, because those are what are called blind spots. Do you know what a blind spot is when you are driving? You are driving and look behind you and see the cars coming, but there is a point that, no matter how much you do this and twist around, you still cannot see, and—wham!—they hit your car. That is the blind spot. The point that you can no longer see.

Who knows our blind spots? Those who live with us, our leadership team; and we know our team’s blind spots. Because when it comes to knowing someone else’s blind spots—but as for my own blind spots, they had better not even tell me about them, because I get angry. How critical they are! Selfishness. It goes together with pride. How can I tell whether I have pride? I do it, I come back, I lead, I do this, I do that, and me, me, me. And when someone else is all “me,” oh, how easy it is to see! But when it is me, I do not see it. It seems perfectly normal to me, but I really need to ask the Lord whether these things that go together are indeed still there.

Look at vainglory. Believing that I am indispensable. I am not. The Lord is doing me a favor by using me. But if I believe that the leader is indispensable… Haughtiness is also placing myself in a position above others, and sometimes in leadership—we are speaking here more or less about middle-management leadership—even in middle management, we sometimes become a little… And we do not realize it. Why? We do not see our haughtiness, but when someone points it out to us, we should bring it before the Lord to see whether it is true.

And arrogance too. “Only I do things well. If I give it to someone else, they will do it badly.” I had better do it myself. I have to teach those who are with me, my team, to do things well. Did they not do it well the first time? I have to teach them a second time, because there is one thing you need as a leader: patience. Look, the fastest race is the one you run alone. You get there faster. Since we cannot go alone, we must have patience.

Then I have to know—and this is very important—my mental states, that is, my defense mechanisms. Reciting them as I am going to recite them to you right now is nice; identifying them in my life is difficult because I have already made them my own, they are already mine, they have already become part of me, and I have to let God take them away from me. If God does not take away our defense mechanisms, if we do not surrender them to Him daily, we will continue to walk in them and will not grow. We will not mature emotionally, we will not learn, and we will not be teachable.

And what are they? Denial. We deny what we feel. “Did what I said make you angry?” “No, I’m a Christian; how could I get angry?” “She is so collegial with me; how could she do that? No way.” Repression: I push my emotions inside and store them there like in a little drawer, and have you noticed that you keep putting little things into drawers and then suddenly one little piece of paper goes in and the drawer will not close anymore? And you push, but the drawer will not close anymore. It is the same thing. Keep piling things up inside, and you will live tired and confused, and suddenly we explode.

Why? Because you keep everything inside. We are mistaking keeping everything inside for goodness and meekness. Those are genuine manifestations of the fruit of the Spirit. This, however, is keeping what you feel inside: “I’m really furious, and I’m keeping it to myself.” That is something else. Displacement: you are at home, very upset with your children, and then you come here and take it out on your team members. “What happened to her?” Or the other way around: we get angry with someone to whom we cannot say anything, and we go home to see who will pay for it. And tell me, don’t we sometimes function that way?

“But Mom, what’s wrong with you?” And we come in scolding everyone about everything. Yesterday you did not scold them for leaving their little socks lying around, but today you become furious and scold them. But it is not the socks that have us furious. It is other things that we could not handle. And many times we go through life doing these things. Regression: the leader or team member who suddenly says, “God told me to leave.” But there are times when God did not tell us that; it is simply that I no longer want to continue with the matter, and I adopt childish behavior, and everyone knows that it is the flesh fighting because it did not like something, and the only one deceived is oneself.

Why? Because these defense mechanisms are unconscious. They are not conscious, and unless we allow the Holy Spirit to penetrate deeply into the unconscious and the subconscious and break all these things that we carry from childhood, from the past, we will continue walking in deception. “Why did she leave the church?” “Oh! It’s because I don’t like this,” but the sister left—that is the reality. Reaction formation: we turn something negative into its opposite. So sometimes we come across as, “Sweet, precious little sister,” and you know that deep down she is neither a sweet little sister nor precious.

You can tell by the tone of voice with which she looks at her. Because we become… “Yes, my dear,” but it is a “Yes, my dear” in which she is not dear at all. That is different from someone who says it sincerely, but I have discernment to know when people are saying it genuinely and when they are not. And people do not know that they are doing that because they are unconsciously using those mechanisms to avoid saying and confronting what they feel and dealing with it.

Isolation: notice that sometimes we isolate the emotional part from the mental part, and then we talk about things as though we were a piece of wood, without emotion. Why? Because the heart has hardened. And many people who come to the knowledge of the Lord come that way, with their emotions isolated, because they are so painful, so many things have happened to them in their lives, that they have had to isolate them. And when you try to minister to them, it seems that the ministry does not get through. And you try and try, and it seems as though there were a piece of wood inside, a hardness of heart.

And that must be broken down little by little, with love, understanding, gentleness, kind words, compassion, and patience; and all of that is work that falls to us as we deal with people. Then we have rationalization or justification. We all use that one: “Why were you late?” “You see… you see…” We arrived late because we left late. And then comes the half-truth and half-lie: because it is partly true and partly not. But to God, it is either true or it is a lie. “Sister, you were praying for me and interceding, weren’t you?” “Of course I was, my sister,” while inside you are thinking, “How embarrassing—I never prayed!” It is a good thing God has already answered her.

Projection: I project onto someone else what I feel. No one in the group I am in is loving. I move to another ministry, but they are not loving either, so I move to another, and it turns out that they are not loving either. So is the entire church unloving? Who might be the one who is not loving? Me. Projective identification: I identify so strongly with certain attitudes of another person that, if they are negative, I become contaminated, and if they are positive, I begin to act like that person and dress like that person, and many times I do not even realize it.

Suddenly, I dress just like the leader, just like the woman who leads the group. Why? Because I am using this mechanism. God has made us individual, different, and unique. So this is very important. Look. Every day, let us go before God and ask Him in every difficult situation, “Lord, which of these mechanisms am I using?” Not which ones the other man or woman uses—which ones do I use? I know which ones I use, and I am letting the Lord work on them. I still have areas where we are making progress. We are by no means perfect. I know which ones I use.

And we must be careful about that and allow God to enter the deep layers of our personality. Let Him enter the unconscious and the subconscious. It is a matter of asking Him every day. Look, the heart is deceitful above all things, and there is a reason the writer said, “Search my heart, O God. Test me. Show me what is wrong in it and teach me the right way.” And to search means to reach all the way down; it means entering the conscious, the subconscious, and the unconscious.

Then there is turning against oneself. This is the person who, because of guilt, begins to harm herself. And notice that sometimes we say of this mechanism, “Well, as Christians, we no longer harm ourselves.” Actually, we do: many times we do not take care of ourselves physically, emotionally, or spiritually. Sometimes that is a way of harming ourselves. “Sister, look, what you have to do is this, this, and this,” and they go away and do not do it.

Who is harming herself? Oneself. Or else: “Sister, take this pill when the doctor prescribed you a pill,” and we do not take it when we were told to. How do we expect to get well? Or he tells us what we need to do, and we do not do it. So we have to ask God which of these mechanisms we are using. On a work team, I will have one personality, and my team will have other personalities. And that is where the problematic situation arises. “I want everyone to think like me.” “I want everyone to act the way I believe they should act.”

And it turns out that I will have a whole range of personalities, and, for example, here we can see the person who is always cheerful. In certain classifications they call this person sanguine; in others they call this person festive—different terms. But it is the person who likes to be on display, who is always happy and always wants to show off. And what happens to us? Sometimes we say, “What she likes is putting on a show,” “What she likes is showing off.” It is her personality, and we can put her to work at something she likes if she does it well.

She connects well with people, so being at the door is good for her because she greets everyone and enjoys being with everyone. And she greets them, hugs them, and makes them feel welcome. Well, wonderful! Sometimes we have another personality. We may have someone who is very serious. The very serious person will say, “Ugh! All that hugging—no!” Why? Because that is not how he is. Plain and simple, what he likes is thinking, analyzing, and looking at details. I do not want to know how many hugs were given; I want to know how much money came in. Those are the accountants. They are the ones who handle the finances because such people are meticulous, and so what they need are details.

So let us be aware that there are people with personalities like that in our group and that we have to use them properly. We may have the person who is called choleric, or who may also be called aggressive or an achiever. He is the one who wants action. So let us give him challenges. He wants to do everything—ah!—then give him plenty of things to do. He likes to be doing things because what he enjoys is the challenge. What he wants is: let’s do it. On the other hand, we may have the person who—in some places—is called phlegmatic and, in other classifications, peaceful.

This person asks, “And what’s the hurry?” “Why are we running?” He is calm. And sometimes the leader wants the phlegmatic person to get moving. Imagine a choleric leader whose entire team is made up of phlegmatic people. The poor others cannot keep up with him. And on every team, we have to recognize the personality of the team as a whole in order to manage it: how the personalities fit together and which one is predominant. Because imagine having a leadership team on which all of us are sanguine. Everyone lives happily, everyone starts everything, no one finishes anything, and then there are meetings, but we never reach the goal.

Imagine that our team is made up entirely of choleric people. Well, we move at a very intense pace. And if we are all serious, imagine a team concerned only with details: it is as though we think about it so much that we do nothing, because there are too many details, too much planning, and we never manage to accomplish anything. You need to have a team with some of everything so that we can combine our strengths and balance one another, and I, as a leader, have to know my personality and keep close to me people who complement me, and I have to understand that I cannot make them just like me.

They have to complement me. I must not try to change them and make all of us alike. Very well. Now we are going to go a little into dealing with difficult people. I am going a little quickly because of time constraints. But let us look at dealing with difficult people. When dealing with a difficult person, let us remember that what we have to manage is the relationship. What has to change is the relationship; what we have to find is a way to walk alongside the difficult person. If I want to change her, I will spend my entire life trying to change her. The person will change, with the Lord, at the pace she allows.

First, we are going to have the Word of God here. Look, the Word of God says here that we should “live in peace.” We are going to have the negative person. It is as though, in a group, this person says, “It can’t be done” to everything you say. Here are three elements that you will have to use with every difficult person you have to deal with at home, in leadership, or anywhere else. And the first of them is: Recognize the negative person within. All of us have something negative in us: “Oh, no! Not me.” All of us have something negative in us. We see it easily in someone else, but all of us have something negative in us.

Second: Accept the person as they are. God accepts us as we are, and on the basis of this acceptance He begins to transform us. Third—and look, these three things apply to everything—pray for the person. Sometimes we spend our time criticizing them instead of praying for them. Especially when you are going to meet with that person, pray that you will be able to relate well to the negative person. What should you do with a negative person in the group? Please do not argue with the negative person. The negative person says no, and you say yes. Do you know what you should do? Accept the negativity, but tell them that there are alternatives.

You can say something like, “All right, I understand that you do not want us to carry out that project because there are many difficulties. That is true. But there are also alternatives that I would like to try. If, along the way, we see that the things you mention cannot be resolved, we will look for other ways.” Then you move forward with your group. You did not get into a dispute with the negative person, but neither did you allow that person to take away your momentum to move forward. Why? Because what happens to the negative person is that they feel they have no control over things.

They are afraid of failing; they are afraid of fear. So how do they make sure they will not fail? By doing nothing. How do they make sure they will not take any risks? Well, they do nothing. Why? Because they are afraid of that. So if we recognize the negative person within us and understand what is happening to the negative person, we will be able to relate to them even if they remain negative, but they will not stop us. Then we have someone we do not like at all: the faultfinder. Look, that person complains all the time and gives advice all the time without being asked.

Now, we all have an inner faultfinder. Tell me that is not so. Have you never criticized anyone? Have you never given advice without being asked? All the time: “If I were you, I would...” But you are not the other person. They are neither asking for your advice nor listening to you. And likewise, pray for and accept the faultfinder. Now then, when criticism comes, we have to distinguish among several aspects. One is to see where the criticism comes from. Some criticism comes from people worth listening to, and some comes from people about whom you are always saying, “There they go again, criticizing.”

Some criticism is not worth hearing and must be stopped. So we have to distinguish which criticism we should listen to and which we should not. When someone comes with criticism, let us listen and bring it before the Lord, and let us see what God’s perspective is. God may say, “Yes, listen to the criticism and correct that mistake.” God may say, “No, you do not have that problem.” But let us listen and seek God’s perspective on the criticism.

The other thing we need to look at is the number of faultfinders. Notice that faultfinders sometimes speak so loudly and criticize so often that it seems as though there were many of them, when perhaps there are only two. And we say, “Everyone criticizes me.” Let us look at things calmly. Who is everyone? Oh! So-and-so—and who else? Such-and-such—and who else? What’s-her-name. Yet we easily say, “The whole group criticizes me.” No! We have to see how many there really are. Notice that the things for which Jesus was criticized were serious, but there were not many of them. Why? Because in reality, sometimes there are not many people criticizing us; sometimes there are only a few, and so we have to be careful about that.

We have to avoid triangulation. Triangulation is when criticism begins to circulate and circulate, nothing gets resolved at all, and we end up with a situation of criticism within the group. And when it comes to criticism, we must also look at our weak points. Notice that just as triggers are words or gestures that lead us to react, there are times, when criticism comes, when you see it approaching, you hear a word coming, and you know it is headed straight for the spot that hurts. You see it coming and know that it is going to strike you right in the heart, don’t you? And then we immediately become defensive.

When the criticism comes, we no longer hear it, and we begin to attack. We have to know our weak points. We think about it and say, “I already know where this is going.” The defense is already beginning. May God help us receive the criticism we should receive, set aside the criticism we should not take to heart, and not allow criticism to stop us. Because I am going to tell you something: if you are a leader, expect criticism. Go ahead and expect it, because it will come. And if it does not come, it is because you are not doing anything. So how good it is when it comes!

The antagonistic person is someone who fights even with their own shadow. Have you noticed that some people fight even with their own shadow? And suddenly someone like that appears in your group. What do you do? What do you do with an antagonistic person? You have to deal with an antagonistic person preventively. How do you deal with them preventively? First, recognize the antagonistic person within you. We all have a little of that. Accept the antagonistic person and pray for them. This applies to all personalities. How can I manage the antagonism so that it does not cause problems in my group?

I have to follow everything that has been established. When I am a leader, there are standards and rules. If I follow them, I deprive the antagonistic person of an opportunity. The antagonistic person gains ground when I do not follow the rules. The other thing I have to do is give them all the information in writing. Give them everything in detail and in writing, and give it to them ahead of time. By doing that, I am managing an antagonistic person in the group. I am not giving them room to act out their antagonism, and I also have to maintain a certain distance.

Remember that this morning we talked about boundaries and about when to allow intimacy and when not to. You cannot keep an antagonistic person too, too close. There must be a certain distance in how you handle them. If you advise the antagonistic person or send them to counseling, it will not work. The antagonistic person is also restrained somewhat by being accepted just as they are and when there is a united front among the leaders. Those of us in different leadership roles have to be united. That helps us a great deal. And now we have another person whom you know very well: the gossip.

We all have a bit of the gossip in us. We do not like it, but it entertains us. The gossip spreads rumors and reveals secrets. When you hear someone gossiping, cut it off. Because we decide where the gossip goes. “Tell me more.” “But what else?” And off the gossip goes. If you allow gossip to infiltrate your work team, we will not have healthy relationships. So we have to stop gossip. We do not have to enter into controversy; we can simply stop it by saying, “I do not want to hear any more of what you are saying.”

And we can say something good about that person. That stops the gossip. Gossip is like dancing: it takes two. And if you stop it, there is no gossip. Another way to prevent gossip in our group is this: let us watch our comments. Sometimes our little tongues get away from us a bit, don’t they? And it is as though we have to ask God to restrain them every day. And look, when someone starts gossip about us—a rumor that is not true—let us ask God for comfort. There are times when we can confront the person and say, “Look, you are saying this, this, and this about me,” but there are times when we cannot.

And may God give us discernment, because some people create their own lies and then believe that what they are saying is true; so how do you make them see that it is not true? May God therefore give us discernment to know when to do it and when not to. And we have to create a good working environment free of gossip, and that can be achieved only by cutting it off at the root. But if the leader likes a little gossip, it will spread throughout the entire team.

What is the basic reason? The gossip wants to be accepted. The gossip feels superior because they have information that others do not have: “Have you heard?” And everyone says, “Oh! What is it that you know and we don’t?” They have placed themselves above everyone else. So may God help us, because sometimes we are the gossips. And here we have another type we do not like: the controlling, domineering person. And if one appears in your group, you have difficulties. The controlling, domineering person is invasive. They invade your space all the time.

Let us acknowledge that we all have something of the little controller in us. If not, just ask the children; they know. Let us accept the controller and pray for them. Do not fight for control. Fire does not put out fire—and then what? Who has control of the group? No! What we have to do with the controller is stop them. How are we going to stop them? Look, you begin your presentation and the controller will not let you continue; they jump ahead of you and want to present it for you. But if you are the leader of the group, you have to stop them and say, “One moment, I have the floor,” and then repeat what you were saying.

And the controller takes the baton away from you again, and you simply say, “I still have the floor,” and continue saying what you need to say. Do not allow them to take your place, but do not enter into strife. Because if you enter into strife, it becomes a problem. But yes, do not permit it. Give them alternatives; say, “At this moment, I have the floor. You will speak afterward. When I finish, you will speak.” That is called the “broken record” technique. If we need to repeat what we began saying, we repeat it, but we do not let the controller take away what we are presenting.

Because before we realize it, they are the one in charge of the group; they are what is called the virtual leader. They take over everything, whereas if the Lord placed us there, He gave us that position, and we must maintain it without entering into strife. And what is going on with the controller? Look, they must feel vulnerable, and that is why they want to be in control. If we understand that all these difficult personalities have problems with acceptance, problems with their sense of worth, and problems managing their emotional lives, we will understand them better. We will get along with them better, and we will not reject them.

And we also have the traitor. This one really is two-faced, isn’t that right? You already know who it is. We all also have a little traitor somewhere inside us. Now, as for the underhanded traitor, look, know who that person is. And put some measures in place in your group so that you can, as people commonly say, protect yourself in advance. And if you see that someone is betraying you, confront them and let them know what they are doing. And if you see that they are betraying someone else, stop them. You cannot allow them to keep going; you can stop them without entering into conflict. Here, too, the network of trust and unity we have among the leaders helps us greatly.

Because when someone like that comes along, well, we are united. We have a network of mutual trust. And what is going on with the controller? They have a feeling of powerlessness, and by controlling everything they want to feel that they are capable. The controller will always believe that they know more than you do. That is why they do not let you speak or want you to make your presentation. They know, and you do not. You stop them by giving them alternatives so that they can speak later. Give them the option afterward, but take your place. We also have the competitor: this person believes that everything is about outdoing one another. Let us not play that game. We have the goals God has given us.

We have no reason to enter into a competition to see who does it better. No! You have your goals; pursue them as God has given them to you. Do not play the game. And the competitor can easily be a person with a little envy. Let us pray to the Lord that He will give us prudence in this, and let us continue pursuing our own goals. The competitor is also insecure. These difficult personalities—which we hope are not ours, right? Because if we are the leader and have these traits, then we have work to do as well. And finally, as we draw to a close, how do we handle what others think of us?

Let us not waste energy on this. The only One whose opinion of us should matter is God. Let us not pretend that we are perfect. If people see that we have faults, then we have faults. If people see that we made a mistake, let us correct it, but we do not have to pretend that everything is wonderful and everything is perfect. It is not, and we cannot please everyone. There will always be someone who is not pleased. And something that can help us a great deal, look, is counsel. An abundance of counsel is always good. Counsel is good.

And let us also see whether we might have a person on the team who does not speak. Here the best thing is to use what is called reverse psychology; or if you have a child who does not speak, use reverse psychology. You can say, “I know you have something to say. I respect your silence. Tell me when you have time; tell me whenever you want.” We take away some of the pressure, and when we take away the pressure, that person will begin to speak. But we must be careful that when we finally get them to speak, we listen to them.

Because suddenly, whether out of shyness, fear, or whatever the reason may be, that person does not speak; and when they do speak, we do not listen, or we quickly say, “No, that is not how it is.” They will never speak again. Because sometimes people in groups adopt that attitude: “I am not going to say anything again.” And we remain stuck in that attitude of “I am not going to say anything again.” So let us learn to use reverse psychology at those moments so that the pressure changes, or to ask questions such as, “Tell me what you thought of such-and-such,” while trying to keep the person from answering only yes or no, so that they have to give a description of things. This helps too.

And finally, what attitudes should we adopt when dealing with difficult people? Look, if we do not have humility, if we are not determined to get along with them despite the way they are—because we are never going to have a perfect team. If you expect to be a leader with a team in which every personality is well-adjusted, lovely, and wonderful, perhaps the first person who would have to leave would be you, the leader. Right?

So let us accept them. God accepts us. Let us help them, let us grow together with them, let us find a way to relate to them, and let us have hope that God will help us. For what reason? Because those of us who are strong in the faith must help those who are weaker. And one of the reasons a leader has been placed in that position is because she is stronger than anyone else. So I want to ask you to stand. Let us pray.

Father, we thank You this afternoon because You have helped us reflect on many things that are inside us. Beloved Father, sometimes when we see so many things that we have to change, so many things in which we have to improve, Father, sometimes we think we will never accomplish it. That it is all too much, and that the demands placed upon us in the leadership position in which You have placed us are too great, or that the demands You have placed upon us as leaders in our home are too great, Father.

But we know that when You give us a position as fathers, as mothers, as spiritual mothers in the church, as leaders in the church, You do not leave us alone. Your Word says that You will always be with us, that You will help us, that You will comfort us, and that You are the One who takes us from glory to glory. We know that the transformation of all these things will not happen overnight. We know that all of this is a process, but what we do ask, what we come to ask of You this afternoon, Lord Jesus, is that we may see the areas that we still need to submit to You.

The areas in all of this that we are looking at, Father, which still need to be improved. Thank You for showing them to us, Father. Because only by recognizing them can we surrender them to You. I want to ask you, if you have an area in any of these things that needs God to work on it, I am going to ask you to come up here to the front in all simplicity, in all simplicity, so that God may begin to work in each of these areas.