Movement Building Leadership: Avoiding the Failure of Nerve

Think Systemically

At the heart of Friedmanʼs model (based on M. Bowen Family Systems Theory) is an

“systems approach” to leadership. By applying a family systems theory to leadership,
Friedman argues that leaders lead in a systemic environment in which the elements (i.e.
individuals, their relationships, vision, causes, values, etc.) are all interrelated and
interconnected. Friedman often uses “systemic examples” to clarify the nature of
leadership (e.g. organic/living systems, the immune system, the brain-body connection,
the evolutionary process, etc.).

To understand our role as leaders, Friedman argues that the leader must think
systemically, embracing the interconnectedness of the whole network of
relationships in an organization (institution/movement/church, etc.) In other words,
the functioning of any member, including the leader, plays a significant role in the
functioning of the other members of the organization.

Thus, when viewed through a systems lens, leadership is a functioning position that is
present in all relational systems. From this perspective, how that position is filled - - how
the "leader" is present in the system - - is the crucial issue. A system will either benefit
or suffer from the way the leader is present because the functioning of the leader (or
leaders) affects the emotional processes inherent in all relational systems (see next
point).

Using a biblical/biological metaphor, Friedman says that “wherever the head goes, the
body will follow.” If the leader (i.e., head) of an organization clearly defines the direction
the leader is going AND if the leader stays connected to the members of the
organization, the members will follow the leaderʼs direction. This cause-effect happening
will be automatic.

Indeed, the leader “systemic power” affects the organization/movement at a far more
fundamental level than what is often appreciated. The leaderʼs presence (i.e. poise,
bearing, confidence, energy, etc.) leaves “a spirit, essence, affect” that permeates the
organization.

This has implications for leadership development. Often, leadership training puts the
primary emphasis on others (disciples, employees, followers, team members) as
objects to be motivated. The best leadership training, according to Friedman, begins
and focuses on the systemic effects of the presence, or self, of the leader.

Acknowledge the Role of Emotional Processes within the System

Freidmanʼs theory of leadership relies heavily on the cumulative effect of emotional

processes--how emotionally mature people are, their emotional reaction to anxiety and
one another, and how individuals/groups manage or self-regulated their emotions.

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Because an organization is a living, interrelated system, leaders and followers are
intimately connected through an emotional field they have created – with positive or
negative effects on the health of the organization. According to Friedman, followers do
not have to observe a leader directly, or even be in some direct “chain of command”
hierarchy, in order to be affected, positively or negatively, by the leaderʼs positive or
negative functioning..

The idea of the ʻemotional processesʼ or of an ʻemotional fieldʻ as central to the

leadership environment never occurred to me. In my study of battlefield leadership at
Gettysburg (see ifproperlyled.org), Iʼm surprised I never connected how the leadersʼ
non-anxious presence on the battlefield affected the emotional condition of the troops
he commanded.

Realize that Emotional Processes (Relationship Systems) Tend Toward

Imaginative Gridlock

Friedman argues that relationship systems often become “imaginatively gridlock”--

conceptually stuck. He writes:

When any relationship system is imaginatively gridlocked, it cannot get free simply
through more thinking about the problem. Conceptually stuck systems cannot
become unstuck simply by trying harder. For a fundamental reorientation to occur,
that spirit of adventure which optimizes serendipity and which enables new
perceptions beyond the control of our thinking processes must happen first. This is
equally true regarding families, institutions, whole nations, and entire civilizations.

Friedman illustrates this point by describing the "quantum leap" forward that occurred
around the year 1500 as enterprising leaders moved Western civilization out of
"imaginative gridlock" through their self-differentiated leadership. Primarily telling the
story of Renaissance explorers, he describes how adventurous leaders like Columbus
broke the imaginative and emotional barriers of Western Civilization and led it to new
ways of thinking.

To Friedman, imaginatively gridlocked relationship systems will not change on their own
based purely on the new or additional learning they receive. “There must be a shift in
the emotional processes of that institution. Imagination and indeed even curiosity are at
root emotional, not cognitive, phenomena. In order to imagine the unimaginable, people
must be able to separate themselves from surrounding emotional processes before they
can even begin to see (or hear) things differently.”

Friedman describes relational systems that are imaginatively gridlocked as

characterized by three interlocking realities:

1. an unending treadmill of trying harder

2. a continual search for new answers to old questions rather than an effort to reframe
the questions themselves, and

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3. an either/or, black or white, all-or-nothing One blogger I read recently suggested the
ways of thinking that leads to false following questions to encourage
dichotomies. imaginative freedom:
In one of my favorite paragraphs, Friedman • Are you imaginatively gridlocked? Are
concludes that: you stuck in patterns that you can’t
seem to get out of? Is your business,
The great lesson here is for all organization, or family growing and
imaginatively gridlocked systems is that excelling?
the acceptance and even cherishing of • Is the pace of your life, organization, or
uncertainty is critical to keeping the family such that you can’t get
human mind from voyaging into the appropriate separation?
delusion of omniscience. The willingness • Is your organization able to utilize the
to encounter serendipity is the best imaginative power of it’s leaders to
antidote we have for the arrogance of bring their best to each new day?
thinking we know. Exposing oneself to • Are you willing to separate from your
chance is often the only way to provide organization enough to see things
the kind of mind-jarring experience of clearly?
novelty that can make us realize that
what we thought was reality was only the
mirror of our minds.

Columbus and the other explorers possessed, according to Friedman, a willingness to

encounter the unexpected, to imagine the unimaginable. When they did so, they set
Europe free from their emotionally-bounded mind-sets which had kept them in the dark
ages for a thousand years. Using the Renaissance explorers as models, he argues that
leaders of any social system must possess the following characteristics:

• a capacity to get outside the emotional climate of the day

• a willingness to be exposed, that is, vulnerable
• persistence in the face of resistance and downright rejection
• stamina in the face of sabotage along the way
• willingness to be called “headstrong” and “ruthless”

Friedman uses Columbus and the Renaissance explorers as examples of what he

means by “well-differentiated leadership” and its ability to break the imaginative gridlock
within organizations/movements. But before he does that, he also addresses “chronic
anxiety” -- the second characteristic common to the emotional fields within which
leaders must lead.

Realize that Emotional Processes (Relationship Systems) Tend Toward Chronic

Anxiety

Friedman argues that relationship systems can tend toward chronic, systemic anxiety—
in families, institutions, and society— and that anxiety not only hinders the development
of the system but also operates at the same time to derail leadership. The presence of

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chronic anxiety affects all systemic relationships, and all of life itself. Chronic anxiety is
not what we think of as being overtly "anxious" about something. It is the "emotional and
physical reactivity of all life" generated by individual and group reactions to disturbances
in the balance of a relationship system.

As I mentioned in my previous post on the Audacity of Leadership, Friedman describes

five elements of chronic anxiety as:

• Reactive–the vicious cycle of intense emotional reactions of each member to events

and to one another
• Herders–a process thru which the forces for togetherness triumph over the forces for
individuality and move everyone to adapt to the least mature members
• Blame displacers–an emotional state in which members focus on forces that have
victimized them rather than taking responsibility for their own being and destiny
• Quick-fixers–members have a low-threshold for pain and thus constantly seek
symptom relief rather than fundamental change.
• Lacking well-differentiated leaders–a failure of nerve in leaders that both stems
from and contributes to the first four characteristics.

One can recognize “chronic anxiety” by the absence of playfulness, which reflects
both intimacy and the ability to maintain distance. Without it, organizations lose
perspective, everything becomes dire, the repertoire of responses to problems are thin.

Peter Steinke (Congregational Leadership in Anxious Times) adds the following results
of anxiety in individuals and in communities:

Anxiety affects human functioning by tightening thinking or restraining behavior. Look at what
anxiety does to repress a person:

• decreases our capacity to learn

• replaces curiosity with a demand for certainty
• stiffens our position over against another’s
• interrupts concentration
• floods the nervous system, so that we cannot hear what is said without distortion or
cannot respond with clarity
• simplifies ways of thinking (yes/no; either/or)
• prompts a desire for a quick fix
• arouses feelings of helplessness and self-doubt
• leads to an array of defensive behaviors
• diminishes flexibility in response to life’s challenges
• creates imaginative gridlock (not being able to think of alternatives, options, or new
perspectives)

Beware of False Solutions

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Before Friedman unpacks his notion of “well-differentiated leadership” as path to
freedom from this “imaginative gridlock and chronic anxiety,” he criticizes the common
generally accepted solutions to such organizational/institutional dysfunction:

• data: that data and technique are more vital to leadership than the capacity to be
decisive
• empathy: that feeling for others helps them mature or become more responsible

Data and Technique

Friedman warns first about data junkyards and data junkies:

By living in a society where data has become an idol, we end up with too many
leaders who are not such in the true sense of the office. Rather we merely have
women and men who have amassed a lot of knowledge. Such acquisitions do not
provide what human beings need. Instead leaders primarily ought to have
confidence of self, vision, and wisdom. Since data is ever-changing, a leader who
relies on knowledge as a foundation for her/his qualifications to lead is ever chasing
a moving "carrot." Therefore, their focus is not on the people whom they lead; it is on
constantly proving their qualifications. The people who need them the most are left
"dangling in the data dust."

He argues that todayʼs anxiety-driven dash for “truth” leads to reductionist thinking, the
reification of models, and an overbearing seriousness, all of which rigidify rather than
free the imaginative capacity. Leaders are often caught up in this dash for data and
thus base their confidence on how much data they have acquired--which in reality
dooms them to feeling inadequate. According to Friedman, leaders and the led begin
then to confuse information with expertise, know-how with wisdom, change with almost
anything new and complexity with profundity. As T.S. Eliot once wrote: "Where is the
wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in
information?"

Furthermore, data-focused leaders never move their people or their causes forward.
Consumed with data, they have no room for "the natural instincts of curiosity and
adventure." Unwittingly, data dependence destroys imagination, creativity and the spirit
of adventure, thus contributing to - causing - stagnation.

The orientation to data and technique has the following effect upon leadership:

• it overwhelms leaders
• it confuses them with contradictory results
• it emphasizes weakness rather than strength
• it de-selfs them by ignoring the variable of individuation (self-differentiation) in
themselves and others.

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Empathy

The second common response to imaginative gridlock and chronic anxiety is empathy.
In Friedmanʼs opinion, empathy (to feel in) is symptomatic of the herding/togetherness
force characteristic of societal anxiety and is not to be encourage in leaders. One of the
central leadership roles is increasing the maturity level of the people in the organization.
Friedman sees this as a playoff between empathy and responsibility.

An empathic perspective says, “Letʼs help people by reducing the stressors in their
lives.” Friedmanʼs believes this is the least preferred way of improving organizations. To
him, the real payoff was in making people stronger through challenging their growth and
maturity.

What increases self-differentiation and emotional maturity, is not empathy, but

challenge. A focus on empathy is an adaptation toward weakness.

Focusing on responsibility is emphasizing strength. Leaders who develop greater clarity

about what is happening in a system will always be more productive in the long run than
just having empathy for the hurting people in the system and trying to rescue them.
People grow through challenge and not by simply being made to feel better about their
plight.

"Ultimately," Friedman argues, "societies, families, and organizations are able to evolve
out of a state of regression not because their leaders 'feel' for or 'understand' their
followers, but because their leaders are able, by their well-defined presence, to regulate
the systemic anxiety in the relationship system they are leading and to inhibit the
invasiveness of those factions which would preempt its agenda. After that, they can
afford to be empathic."

Lead through Self-differentiation

The solution to imaginative gridlock and chronic anxiety in the organization, according to
Friedman, is the presence of well-differentiation in the leader(s) In other words,
leadership through self-differentiation.

“Self-differentiation is a term used to describe one whose emotional process is no

longer ultimately dependent on anything other than themselves. They are able to live
and function on their own without undue anxiety or over-dependence on others.
They are self-sufficient. Their sense of worth is not dependent on external
relationships, circumstances or occurrences.”    (Self-differentiation:  An Essential
Attitude for Healthy Leadership, Thomas F. Fischer, Number 345)

This does not mean self-differentiated leaders donʼt give a hoot about people.  It means
their self-worth does not rely on the opinions of others.

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 Self-differentiation in the leader simply refers to the capacity of a leader to define his
or her own life's goals and values apart from surrounding pressures, to say "I" when
others are demanding "you" and "we". It includes the capacity to maintain a
(relatively) non-anxious presence in the midst of anxious systems, to take maximum
responsibility for one's own destiny and emotional being.

Friedman describes it so:

“The basic concept of leadership through self-differentiation is this: If a leader will

take primary responsibility for his or her own position as “head” and work to define
his or her own goals and self, while staying in touch with the rest of the organism,
there is more than a reasonable chance that the body will follow. This emphasis on
a leaderʼs self-differentiation is not to be confused with independence or some kind
of selfish individuality. On the contrary, we are talking here about the ability of a
leader to be a self while remaining a part of the system.”

Peter Steinkeʼs description is particularly helpful:

“Self-differentiation in emotional processes refers to the amount of self available to

an individual, such as an individualʼs overall maturity, level of functioning, and the
degree of responsibility for self. It is the capacity to choose a course of direction and
to stay the course when reactive people want to reroute you. It is the ability to stay
focused on your own functioning while being aware of others. Self-differentiation is
the ability to stand up and be counted in matters of principle and belief and yet
remain with family and community. It is the ability in anxious circumstances to
regulate oneʼs own reactivity by thinking. Differentiation is to take a position in the
midst of emotional forces and still remain in touch with others.” Healthy
Congregations, pg. 103.

Of all people, followers of Christ should have the most reason to be healthily self-
differentiated.  Christians believe that their self-worth is based upon Godʼs redemptive,
faithful, eternal grace expressed most fully through Jesus Christ.  Christians understand
that their worth has already been determined on the cross. They are, in Henri
Nouwenʼs terms, the beloved of God. Their identity, significance, worth is rooted in the
unconditional affirmation of the Father.

Therefore, Christian leaders can focus their attention on the mission (Matthew 28:19-20)
and not become overly anxious about the approval and affection of other people. 
Christian leaders do not lead because they need to be needed.  They lead in faithful
obedience to Godʼs call.  They serve God among a beloved people. Their service of
others is sympathetic and compassionate, but not “empathic”.

According to Friedman, the # 1 issue in leadership today is a failure of nerve to define

oneself more clearly. The leaderʼs self-differentiation, not empathy, will encourage self-
differentiation in others. A major sign of being better differentiated is when the leader
can be present in the midst of emotional turmoil and actively relate to key people while

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calmly maintaining a sense of the leaderʼs own direction. When the leader is properly
“self-possessed,” he or she can affect the whole system of relationships and help break
the grip of chronic anxiety in the organization.

How do leaders become well-differentiated?

Systems thinking provides three basic steps which a leader must take to be an effective
leader. The first is to take responsibility for her position as the head of the system. The
second is self-differentiation, the definition her own goals and self. The third step to
effective leadership is for the leader is to stay connected with the rest of the system. If
the leader accomplishes the third step, staying in touch, she will not alienate the system
members. The difficulty arises in accomplishing the last two steps simultaneously.

Friedman sums up the basic idea of leadership through self-differentiation as follows:

If a leader will take primary responsibility for his or her own position as "head" and
work to define his or her own goals and self, while staying in touch with the rest of
the organism, there is a more than reasonable chance that the body will follow.
There may be initial resistance but, if the leader can stay in touch with the resisters,
the body will usually go along.

Lawrence Matthews suggests the following qualities of leaders engaged in the process
of self-differentiation: self-definition or clarification, self-regulation, connectedness and
response to resistance or conflict.

Separate for Self-definition or Clarification.

To define self is to give expression to the thoughts, values and goals one holds dear. It
includes taking stands. To use biblical language, it is self-revelation. It has both an
internal and external dimension. You work on what you believe and you let others know
where you stand. My responsibility as a leader is to get clear about what I think and
believe and communicate those thoughts and beliefs in words and actions - - not to get
others straight about what they should think and believe. The well-differentiated leader
is always working on self.

And to focus upon clarifying and communicating one's own ideas and goals is an
invitation for others to do the same. When a pastor is able to preach the sermon or a
leader takes a stand that clearly and non-reactively expresses what the pastor or leader
believes about the emotionally loaded issue facing the congregation/institution, the
people are invited and challenged to clarify and express their beliefs - - and some will.

And when the resistance of those who are most reactive surfaces - - as it most probably
will - -if the leader and other leaders are able to maintain that clarity of definition, the
organization stands its best chance of actually responding to the situation in faithfulness
and obedience. It might even act redemptively.

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The leader also clarifies his/her position based on the mission and vision.  “Here I stand. 
I can do no other.”  The more specific, the more transparent, the more unambiguous
these positions; the more helpful it will be to the group.  It is not a personality issue.  It is
not a challenge to the unity of the group.  It is a declaration of personal conviction.

Generally, these positions of conviction create some anxiety in the group being led.  The
leader stretches some of the systemʼs relationships.  In an unhealthy system there is
much fear, confusion, disease, and angst.  Some may approach the leader to dissuade
him/her from that position.

Related to this issue is the leadersʼ temptation to “overfunction.” Friedman argues that
“when someone is overfunctioning in a system, someone else is underfunctioning.”
Such reciprocity is characteristic of emotional systems. Overfunctioning is also where a
lot of leaders get their stress. When the leader overfunctions, he or she unintentionally
brings about learn helplessness. In other words, when the leader try to get others to be
more responsible, he or she is actually taking on more responsibility. And Friedman
argues that leaders must make themselves less responsibility so that underfunctioners
will take more responsibility. He suggests, “Donʼt delegate responsibility, delegate
anxiety by being less responsible.” Then, hopefully, the underfunctioning members of
the system will begin to feel anxious and respond by take responsibility for themselves.

Practice Self-regulation.

Friedman often referred to this as "non-anxious presence." I prefer language that keeps
us focused upon the difficult and challenging process of regulating one's own anxiety.

Anxiety, as used here, encompasses the total human response to the perception of
threat, real or imagined. It comes with human life. It may belong to all protoplasm. And
yet basic to the process of self-differentiation is the task of consciously working at
regulating one's anxiety. This includes acknowledging the anxiety and intentionally
regulating one's reactivity to it. It is hard, daily work. It is never done in the sense of
being finished. But the leader engaged in self-differentiation accepts the challenge. She/
he knows that change in the emotional process is facilitated by focusing upon the
modification of one's own behavior rather than the functioning of others.

Leaders have to work at disconnecting their “hot buttons.” A non-reactive presence in a

system has a calming influence on the emotional processes in the system. In one of
Friedmanʼs favorite metaphors, he argues that such leaders can break, like an electrical
transformer, the transmission of anxiety throughout the system.

Stay Connected.

Self-differentiating leaders work at self-regulation and self-definition while maintaining

connection to their relational systems. They realize that they cannot affect an emotional
system of which they are not a part. The key is being well-differentiated AND in touch

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with your followers. The central dilemma for leaders is how do we get close and
maintain self?

It is thus important for newly arrived leaders to take the time to become connected to
their new system. It is especially important to maintain this connectedness when
resistance is encountered because of the leader's self-differentiating behavior. At such
times a leader is tempted to either give up or cut off. But if the leader persists, does not
withdraw or quit and remains connected and on course, a system stands the best
chance of dealing creatively with challenge.

An effective leader stays in touch, initiating conversations and opening the door for
continuous discussion on issues important to the group.  While the leader may or may
not agree with positions the group expresses, the leader stays engaged with the group
regularly listening to their concerns.

Expect Resistance.

Friedman referred to a leader's ability to maintain a posture of non-reactive persistence

- - staying on course in the face of resistance - - as "the key to the kingdom." Although
leaders may seem surprised and disappointed by the reactivity of others to what they
consider their creative self-differentiated leadership efforts, resistance is actually
systemic in nature. It comes with the territory. Leaders must be prepared for resistance
and be ready to keep plugging away.

Self-differentiated leadership disturbs the homeostasis, the "balance", of an emotional

system. The resistance is the "kickback" of the systemic forces themselves to this "loss
of balance" - - even if the original condition was one of "stuckness." In contrast to the
"rearrangement of symptoms" that often passes for change, systemic change includes
resistance to the unfamiliar and therefore uncomfortable readjustment that is necessary
to move to a new state of balance.

The resistance will most probably be experienced by leaders in one or both of its two
major expressions: sabotage and/or seduction. Resistance as sabotage is perhaps
most easily recognizable. Although the sabotage can take many forms, it is usually
expressed through acts of either active or passive attempts to block the change or
attack the perceived would be "changers," usually the leadership.

Resistance as seduction, although less easily recognized as resistance, may be

the more deadly and effective form. It may even be experienced as support for
the leader, when in reality it is an invitation for the leader not to stay the course.
Inevitably, self-differentiated leaders will face conflict and sabotage.  Rarely, does a
group member plan intentionally about how one can sink the pastorʼs ship.  It just
happens.  A healthy leader will not ignore it or avoid it, but look for a healthy way to
address it.

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This is extremely difficult requiring significant grace and humility to intentionally position
oneself where one will hear challenge and criticism.   It requires ample patience to
clarify oneʼs vision over and over again.  But the rewards of a healthy, faithful, effective
ministry are well worth it.

Above all, beware of peace-mongering

Friedman coined the phrase “peace-monger” to describe the destruction caused by

spineless and people-pleasing leaders in their communities. The leaderʼs failure of
nerve reflects the epidemic in todayʼs culture that favors false harmony and good
feelings over progress and integrity. His words about peace-mongering are biting:

“In any type of institution whatsoever, when a self-directed, imaginative, energetic, or

creative member is being consistently frustrated and sabotaged rather than encouraged and
supported, what will turn out to be true one hundred percent of the time, regardless of
whether the disrupters are supervisors, subordinates, or peers, is that the person at the very
top of that institution is a peace-monger. By that I mean a highly anxious risk-avoider,
someone who is more concerned with good feelings than with progress, someone whose life
revolves around the axis of consensus, a “middler,” someone who is so incapable of taking
well-defined stands that his “disability” seems to be genetic, someone who functions as if she
had been filleted of her backbone, someone who treats conflict or anxiety like mustard gas–
one whiff, on goes the emotional gas mask, and he flits. Such leaders are often “nice,” if not
charming.”
A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix, pg. 13-14

Summary

In summary, when the leadership position is filled by a leader (or leaders) who is moving
forward in his/her own process of self-differentiation, any system stands the best
chance of dealing creatively with - - rather than simply reacting to - - change and
challenge. However, the presence of self-differentiated leadership offers "the best
chance" of such a possibility happening, but it is not a guarantee that the system
will respond instead of react.

The payoff of leadership through self-differentiation may not be what we think

such a supposedly more insightful understanding of leadership ought to deliver
- - success of the endeavor and approval for the leader. This understanding of
leadership focuses upon the leader and not upon the outcome of the leader's
efforts. Viewed through the emotional process lens of family systems theory,
"leadership" is not about "them" or "success" but about self - - self-regulation,
self-definition, self-differentiation. The payoff is self.

Addendum:

Avoid Emotional Triangles

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 I haven’t quite figured out Friedman’s point about emotional triangles, so I’ll add it here as an
addendum. He argues that relational systems are composed of triangles. Triangles are the basic
building blocks of any system of people. Since two people have difficulty maintaining a one-to-
one relationship for any period of time, especially when faced with a problem, that human dyad
will automatically look around for a third person to include in the anxious situation in some way.
Leaders often invite triangulation (allow themselves to be triangle in), which allows them to
become the focus of the unresolved issues of the two other sides of the triangle (two persons or
one person and his problem, etc.)

According to Friedman, the stress and eventual burnout of leaders has less to dow with hard
work and more to do with becoming “emotionally triangled.”

(this article--compiled without references/footnotes/etc....not to be published .... just notes copied

from various sources)

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