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This is an episode of random thoughts, I’d love to hear your random thoughts as well. My first thought is regarding the discussion of disciplinary councils. Have you participated in such councils? Has your experience been good? Bad? Spiritual? I shared some thoughts on the subject over at This Week in Mormons in my article titled Mormon Disciplinary Councils Aren’t About Sin. Please give the article a read and then share your thoughts below. I don’t expect everyone to agree with me, but I’d love to have an open dialogue about the topic. I want to thank the This Week in Mormons team for allowing me to share my thoughts. They’ve been very good to me. I also received some fan mail this week! 😉 I’m kidding, of course, but I did get an email from a faithful executive secretary that experienced an awkward ward council full of finger pointing and yelling. Here’s what the email said:
Thanks for creating such a great site and resource for members of the church. I’m currently the executive secretary in my ward and not technically a leader, but I enjoy learning about it. I especially like your Saint Nicholas talk 🙂 I have a question though… have you experienced any conflict or dislike among the auxiliary leaders in your ward? If so, how did you handle or help the situation. In our ward council a few weeks ago there was finger pointing and a screaming match over not having enough butter at the ward Christmas party and the Relief Society president ended up storming out of the room. I had never seen people lose it in a setting like that, and I thought it was an isolated situation in a unique ward. However, a friend in our last ward mentioned that there was a conflict in one of his ward councils recently, and ended with the ward mission leader walking out. From what I saw, in both cases the Bishop’s handled it well, but I am not sure what was said behind close doors. These may be isolated situations, but I’m sure that it happens else where in the church. How would you counsel in a situation like that? I’ll keep reading and listening. Thanks.
I give my response in the podcast episode, but in short, the solution to a situation like this comes from the book Crucial Accountability: Tools for Resolving Violated Expectations, Broken Commitments, and Bad Behavior. If you haven’t read this book, GO. READ. IT. NOW. It has had a great impact on my communication as a leader and helped me diffuse awkward situations. I’d love to hear how others would have handled this situation or other stories of when ward council blows up! 🙂 Please comment below.
