It’s a hard truth of leadership: when you’re a leader in a group or organization, including the church, people will sometimes disagree with what you say and do.

Another hard truth of leadership: not everyone who disagrees with you is willing to talk with you about it. Thankfully, some are. But many are not.

I learned the first hard truth early in my experiences of leadership. I learned the second hard truth in my last stint as a pastor, and I experience it in my new role as a regional church leader. There are some people who simply don’t want to have a conversation with leadership about issue X, Y, or Z, even though they have strong feelings about X, Y, or Z which are at odds with their perception of “where leadership is going.”

Now there are many reasons why this might be the case, but at least for some, they draw a sense of power and even identity from being able to claim that “leadership doesn’t listen” or “leadership doesn’t care.” And then some of them will use that power to draw others to them, and together they form a group who share that sense of aggrieved identity—all while ignoring or refusing invitations from leadership to have a conversation. They’ll claim, “The leaders won’t actually listen, so what’s the point?” but they don’t really know that since they won’t actually talk with the leaders.

This dynamic is a common human trait. You see it in the political realm all the time.

I grew up in Alberta, where many Albertans had a strong sense of “western alienation” as part of their identity. They railed against Ottawa and claimed that the federal government didn’t care about them, didn’t listen to them. But any time a prime minister or cabinet minister would come to Alberta for a meeting or town hall, they’d either not show up or they’d show up but sit there in silence, arms crossed. That allowed them to go back to their group and say, “See, I told you they wouldn’t listen!”

It’s similar—but with some important differences—to the phenomenon of a wounded person clinging to their wounds (physical or psychological) and not moving toward healing. Their wounds become part of their identity, and if they come to a moment of realization about this, they acknowledge that they don’t really want to be healed because that would mean having to change, to become a different person.

The key distinction between this and the other, of course, is that here we’re talking about someone with genuine wounds. In the situations I’ve described earlier we don’t actually know if their grievances are legitimate because there’s no chance to talk about them, to clarify, to seek mutual understanding.

So what can leaders do in these situations? How do you lead the willfully aggrieved?

I don’t have any magic solution here. All I’ve got is patient, compassionate persistence.

I keep my door open, and keep letting these folks know my door is open. I offer to talk, or better to listen, in person if possible, every time I become aware of a new aggrieved person. I keep reaching out to the person, and to their group. I try to be gentle, to be patient, to be compassionate, to be respectful, to be kind.

Sure, sometimes you have to set boundaries with those who persist in their willfully aggrieved state and invite supportive friends and colleagues to help those boundaries be maintained. This is necessary if the person is continually speaking out publicly or in their group but refusing to talk with you directly, especially when this behaviour becomes abusive or destructive. But, to use Paul’s words, “As far as it depends on you, be at peace with all people” (Rom 12:18).

It’s also important to maintain peace within yourself. I’ve had to learn to accept the hard truth that not everyone who disagrees with me is willing to talk with me about it. That reality has eaten at my soul many times, causing me tremendous anxiety and even contributed to bouts of depression. But I am learning to accept this truth. I am learning to entrust these situations, these people, into God’s hands.

Two hard truths of leadership. And yet God is with us, even in the hard truths.