Creating a Relationship Restoration Ritual
One of the most overlooked aspects of leadership is how to navigate conflict in ways that build a healthier team and strengthen the mission. In my experience, leaders often view conflict management as necessary but fail to undertake the hard work of creating organizational and team practices that effectively steward conflict. Saying “Just be professional” is unhelpful and vague. Your idea of “professional” might be very different from mine. People process relationships, conversations, and conflicts in many ways. That’s part of the diversity God has given us, and it should be celebrated and managed wisely. Expecting someone to handle conflict the same way I do is both arrogant and stifling.
What we need, then, is a community-created restoration ritual. This ritual allows space for different personality types and values to find their place in conflict resolution, to be respected and given a voice in the process. It’s not one leader forcing their values and ideas on others; it’s the community collectively deciding what is vital for their mission and how they will guide conflict toward new mission-focused goals and stronger, more meaningful relationships.
The following diagram is called the “Restoration Process for Relationship Conflict Model,” which was pioneered by Hong Ren and Barbara Gray in their article “Repairing Relationship Conflict: How Violation Types and Culture Influence the Effectiveness of Restoration Rituals” (The Academy of Management Review 34, no. 1, 2009, p. 106).
In establishing a relationship-restoration ritual according to this module, there are three important points to keep in mind. First, the model recognizes that all conflict contains both identity and agency issues. We have to address both in the restoration process. If we don’t, the conflict is not resolved and, more than likely, it will resurface down the road. Here are the definitions:
- Identity Threats: These occur when a person’s sense of self-worth, competence, or moral integrity feels challenged or undermined. Examples include feeling accused of being selfish, incompetent, or insensitive. Identity threats trigger defensiveness because they strike at who we believe ourselves to be.
- Control Threats: These arise when a person feels powerless, coerced, or excluded from decision-making or influence. Examples include being ignored, overridden, or forced into a course of action. Control threats provoke resistance because they violate our need for agency and autonomy.
Second, the restoration process walks through four stages: Challenge, Offering, Acceptance, and Thanks. A leadership team needs to define for themselves what is essential in each stage for both identity and agency/control ruptures. The stages are defined as follows:
- Challenge: The rupture is named. A truth is spoken that disrupts the status quo, whether through confrontation, lament, or prophetic naming. This stage invites honesty and courage, surfacing what has been hidden or avoided.
- Offering: A gesture of repair is made, such as an apology, a gift, a changed behavior, or a symbolic act. It’s not transactional but relational: the offering expresses a desire to restore dignity and connection.
- Acceptance: The harmed party receives the offering, not out of obligation but through discernment and grace. This stage affirms agency and mutuality. Acceptance may be immediate or gradual, but it signals movement toward healing.
- Thanks: Gratitude seals the ritual. It honors the courage, vulnerability, and commitment of both parties. This stage reorients the relationship toward hope, acknowledging that restoration is a shared achievement.
Finally, the end result of the process should not be a return to the status quo. While the status quo is disrupted by the rupture, the conflict itself is an invitation to move beyond the status quo into new horizons of possibility. After the Thanks stage is completed, the team should reflect on what they learned through the conflict, how they will think/act differently in the future, and how the conflict is leading them toward transformation.
