A quick fix. Fitting in. Ensuring stakeholders are appeased, not inspired. Ensuring that the right buzzwords are used, and terminology if not properly implemented. Either the anxious few, or the zombiefied majority may lead. Any of this sound familiar? We are in a world of managers. I was one, so I do not intend to slight the profession, but it needs to be acknowledged for what it is. That is the function of maintaining, growing, an short term vision casting. It is not about a long-term vision, or dream. It is responsive, can be pragmatic, but also is usually caught in many triangulations (the unhealthy use of a relationship triangle). One may have entered into the profession through pursuit, working hard and earning their colleague’s trust, or simply being the last one standing the longest (in some instances, it can also be the one that made eye contact at the wrong time in a meeting with the chair).
Edwin H. Friedman (and editors who completed the work after his passing) attempt to unpack what makes a healthy leader in the modern context in his 2017 (10th anniversary edition) A Failure of Nerve” Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix. Friedman, a rabbi and practicing family therapist in his life, takes his family systems theory and expands it out into the world of leadership. His theories are shaped around anecdotes from his work in therapy, as a consultant to business, politics and religious organizations. As far as leadership authors go, he is as qualified as any to put forward a theory. It is a theory that lends itself to the human end of leadership and organizations.
The lynch-pin of his theory is on the concept of Chronic Anxiety hat has developed within the institutions of the world. The book walks the reader through eight thesis to unpack this concept, and point to the need for a healthy differentiated leader to move an organization into health and break the anxiety cycle.
Friedman touches upon the need for emotion, imagination and the spirit of adventure back into leadership. Within our understanding this many years on, I would say it is now focused on the idea of manager versus leader, or someone able to bark the loudest, over someone able to move through life with integrity. Sadly, within the concept of Chronic Anxiety, or in my understanding of U Theory and Change, a world stuck in pre-contemplation, or anger-denial and not wanting to let go of where we are to allow what come to come. The places that open themselves up to a leadership with integrity, not an autocrat, but someone who casts a position, and functions healthily to keep the boat steady. It is an understanding to be able to see those that need time to understand, and if you have not gutted the core values of self or organization to change direction you will hold on to the healthy ones. That is the strength will stay. If you do not, you will have workers, parishners, etc. that will constantly show up, but will not allow for true growth-expansion and depth.
That is they will constantly be creating emotional triangles to drag the leader down, or to attempt to trigger their anxiety to come down to the level they are at. It is what is known in addiction recovery as misery likes company. As you heal, then those still in the cycle will try to sabotage you. Same is being put forward by Friedman in his leadership theory. One piece he could’ve drawn out more in the concept of saboteur is the interior one, the old soundtracks, or ignored soundtracks that under moments of intense stress can re-emerge in our own lives. Ones that a point in time may have kept us safe or healthy, but are not healthy and no longer serve a purpose but are comfortable. These interior saboteurs can be as destructive as the exterior ones on leadership.
There is also a touchstone on the drive for data. It is true, data is important, yet as our world becomes more data obsessed, we have lost the ability for the qualitative and have driven hard for the quantitative exclusively. The only flaw is that it is only part of the story, and the numbers part can be swayed to prove any point depending on what one focuses on and how it is presented. Also what’s the context that it is being presented in, like a budget that shows a deficit for one year, but ignores the surpluses of previous years, not the whole story is there. So is a data set, without an emotional component. The story piece, the impact piece.
For example in housing first work it was based (and may still be) in the early days on acuity, which means those with the most complexity get housed first. Unfortunately this left a huge gap for literally those that fell between the gaps for affordable housing and housing subsidies. Either those that were working poor, or elderly, or with disabilities, in some cases veterans, or someone who had been housed based on acuity but had “graduated” after x number of years, and was now back. Those in the gap had a story, and a right, but did not fit the targeted data set. Those that cast a vision of home for those in the gap were often ridiculed, and finally forced into silence. But what has been missed? It was not an either or dichotomy that a chronic anxious society wants, because when in anxiety or trauma or depression the world becomes inherently black and white. It was a both and lens to look at how we cared for all our neighbours in need, and walked with them out of institution into community, and home (not simply a place with walls and a door) but a place of authentic belonging.
One only gets there, regardless of sector, by being able to have heart, compassion, understanding, and a holistic understanding of the story, data and all. The other piece though is sometimes the data does not show the outliers or the gappers, and that is where a differentiated leader will take one. Just take the church with the plug and play program mentality for survival or social club atmosphere instead of looking into its heart as an organization and ask, why are we here? What do we offer that is different? What happens if we close, outside of those in the pews who would miss us? Would even those in the pews miss us or simply find a new social group? It takes a leader outside of the anxiety, and willing to face the brunt of the sabotage and attack to speak out of the Spirit, and state that it is something different. It is not breadth, but depth, and there is many ways to get there if the group is willing.
That is the hard part, for an anxious leader with an strong healthy group can look great, while a strong healthy leader may collapse with an unhealthy group that is unwilling to take the journey to health. Friedman’s opus, that was finished by others, is a guide for leadership formation that is against the grain, and also shows a community how to come into health. The challenge coming from a social psychology bent is that it can be easily silenced, the deeper biological science he uses, while a path to follow as illustrations can be a deterrent for the laity in picking up the work. It is a text that needs to be discussed with others, and to be used as a self-reflective tool. The challenge is that it has a highly American bent in the context it shares one functioning in. I know there is a Chronic Anxiety in Canada in our communities, but if you have traveled in both countries it is different, and manifests differently.
You can look at different leadership roles and unpack the anxieties you had, those you led, the saboteurs, and what worked and did not work to learn and grow from. In between leadership roles, it can be explored as a source of renewing the heart set, but also read along other resources to seek to understand context. The context then, being looked at, does need to be applied locally. A fallacy I do believe Friedman falls into is the universality fallacy that cultural competency and empathy are not important. I give that his understanding of empathy as allowing one not to face their own “demons” (my word) is wrong, and that one should not use it to hide from healing, but there is something about being able to see from another’s perspective, and to understand the impact the path may take on that. It can and does shape healthy conversations of separation or departure if needed for colleagues and team mates with a new vision.
This exploration came as I began challenging my brain once more by auditing a condensed course on Strategic Leadership. The topic popped up as it had been the central topic in many coffee conversations and how one can be strategic and hold to their core values, and the core values an organization “professes” to have. Too often “becoming strategic” has been a buzz word to drastically change an organizations culture, do harm to long term staff, remove staff care, and focus more on the monetary over the person before us. The journey is seeking the Via Media of what should be in caring for all, and ensuring funding.
________________________________________________________
A stone skipping across a pond leaves ripples with each impact.
The joys and life of traumas are the like the skipping stone through the generations.
Soul Ripples
What happens when the helper needs help?
For over 20 years Ty Ragan served his neighbour from the rough camps to the shelters to home and every where’s in-between. The simple life lesson of Jesus of Nazareth to love your neighbour as yourself was the centre question to be answered in his life. In May 2016 his life would begin to change drastically through unknown seizures and strokes.
Enter into the ripples that brought him to 2016, the transformational power of love of family and friends as he seeks new ripples in hope for his soul.
Buy your copy at Amazon.ca today.
Paul Vargis
Ty
That was the broad strokes. The cure though did not solve the problem of Andor moving forward from where they were. Or the fear that led them to create tenuous to no relationship with the Federation, or to answer what next?
A Monk's Musings 