Serving people who treat you well is
relatively easy. But serving people who behave badly toward you? That can be
much harder.
At one time or another, we’ve all
been disrespected. I have. You have. We all have. We’ve experienced behavior
that is rude, arrogant, self-serving, jealous, demeaning, dominating, and even
manipulative.
It is not easy to serve people when
they are falling short of their potential in these ways. But when they show up
like this in your relationships, you can lean on your servant leadership
orientation to guide yourself and them to higher ground.
Here
are five practices to help you stay kind and serve while dealing with awful
behavior:
1.
Acknowledge
When people behave badly toward you,
it likely has nothing to do with you. It could, but chances are high
that it doesn’t. Most often, the bad behavior you can see is rooted in
emotional trauma that’s hidden.
People often disrespect others in
order to create on the outside what they feel on the inside. In other words,
they seek to hurt because they themselves are hurting. This usually isn’t a
conscious process. It’s often spontaneous. Whether or not the pain people are
feeling is rational or justified is beside the point.
If this idea feels foreign to you,
think about the last time you stubbed your toe. When you felt that sharp,
intense pain shoot through your foot, what was your first reaction? You had to expel
something, right? Maybe that something was a gasp or a yell or a word that
can’t be printed in this blog.
The pain came in to your
body, and so something had to come out of your body.
That’s often how disrespectful
behavior is formed. Life causes people pain and, because they’ve never been
taught to “expel” that pain productively, they do it unproductively, through
all sorts of negative attitudes and behaviors.
Acknowledge this. Allow yourself to
be guided by it when you experience or witness disrespect.
Scottish author and theologian Rev.
John Watson put it best: “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard
battle.”
2.
De-escalate
That said, you shouldn’t be a
doormat. No servant leader should. In fact, servant leadership is rewarding
precisely because you lean in to situations like this. But before you
respond, ask yourself, what is your instinctual response to being disrespected?
If you’re like the rest of us, your
gut instinct is either to go on the offense or the defense. The truth is,
neither of those positions will serve you. When you react to poor behavior by
attacking the other person or defending yourself, you’ll only amplify the
emotions that are causing the behavior to occur in the first place.
So, don’t react immediately. Pause.
Count to ten in your head. Breath deeply, relax your posture, and allow your
spiked emotions the chance to calm back down a bit. If you can wait a few hours
before responding to poor behavior, do so. Give yourself permission to calm
down and regain perspective.
The other person will feel you
pausing. They won’t be able to not feel it. And even if they aren’t yet able to
pause their own emotional roller coaster, their inability to hijack you will
keep the situation from escalating further.
3.
Invite
Once you’ve regained your balance,
invite people into a “different” conversation with you – a conversation based
in mutual respect, curiosity, and kindness.
When you talk, wipe the slate clean.
Don’t dwell on the past. Give people the opportunity to begin again with you,
on equal footing.
“For if you forgive other people
when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.” (Matthew 6:14)
4.
Model
Show people how you want to be
treated. Pull out all the stops. Roll out the red carpet. The worse their
behavior was to you, the more they desperately need you to show them the
way!
“Do not repay evil with evil or
insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this
you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.” (1 Peter 3:9)
5.
Affirm
When you experience a positive shift
– any positive shift — in the other person’s behavior, affirm it. Notice
it, lift it up, and give thanks for it.
We all have so much work to do to
become the people God created us to be. None of us is perfect. Let people know
that you actually believe in their potential to get better. Just as
God believed, and still believes.
“And all are justified freely
through his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” (Romans 3:24)
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