The reason that leadership is so challenging right now may not be what you think it is. Is it primarily an issue of function -- restrictions, economic realities, adapting strategies you had in place for this year? Is the issue merely one of skill and competency? Or is it something deeper and more difficult?
We can get to the answer by looking at Edwin Friedman’s description of unhealthy emotional systems. Whether you are talking about a family, corporation, team, church, or society, unhealthy emotional systems exhibit these traits.
Unhealthy emotional systems are marked by reactivity, a ‘vicious cycle of intense reactions of each member to events and to one another’(53), and where people are ‘a panic in search of a trigger’.
Unhealthy emotional systems are marked by a herding instinct. They ‘reverse the direction of adaption toward strength, and it winds up organizing its existence around the least mature, the most dependent, or the most dysfunctional members of the group (67).
Unhealthy emotional systems are marked by blame displacement. Blame displacement is resistance to owning issues and, instead, placing the source of the problem outside of oneself or out of the group. There is a fixation on weakness and an inability to summon the internal strength to address weaknesses. A great description I read recently was, "when you're a nail, everything looks like a hammer."
Unhealthy emotional systems are marked by a quick-fix mentality; relief from pain is more important than lasting change. Technique and method are prized over maturity, a low threshold for pain catered to instead of motivated towards change.
Unhealthy emotional systems are marked by poorly defined leadership. Friedman writes, “What is always absent from chronically anxious, regressed families is a member who can get himself or herself outside of its reactive, herding, blaming, quick-fix processes sufficiently to take stands. (89)
As you read the traits of an unhealthy emotional system you likely felt some or all of them describe relational systems that you are apart of — your family, team, business, church, or even broader society.
Now, take those unhealthy traits that may have been latent, add a pandemic, economic uncertainty, and social unrest and you have a pressure cooker for already anxious people.
A leading cause of stress and burnout among leaders isn’t an issue of function or skill but, instead, of how we relate. Friedman locates the main problem that leads to burnout for leaders is getting stuck in other people’s problems.
What is needed are differentiated leaders who regulate their own anxiety in the midst of an anxious system. Self-differentiation, Friedman describes, is to know where one ends and another begins.
To illustrate this, he uses imagery from biology. The differentiated leader is like a blood cell; it has a nucleus, a central organizing purpose, and boundaries between itself and others. The differentiated leader is the emotional immune system of an organization by being a non-anxious presence, resisting emotional triangles, and influencing others to take responsibility for themselves. They can connect without losing their own identities and without taking on the emotional reactivity and anxiety of the group; which makes them able to take a well-defined stand even when followers disagree.
Poorly differentiated leaders, on the other hand, function less like blood cells and more like viruses. Viruses don’t have a nucleus, a central organizing principle, and can’t exist on their own but, instead, must attach to something else to continue to exist. Their anxiety often looks like being unable to take responsibility for themselves and move through difficulty toward maturity. Instead, they create emotional triangles that look like ‘water cooler’ gossip. This behavior is toxic to a relational system, like a virus is to a body.
Instead of being reactive, a well-differentiated leader is a calm, steady presence, ‘non-anxious’ presence.
Instead of giving in to the pressure of the herding instinct, a well-differentiated leader has a strong sense of self and can effectively separate while remaining connected.
Instead of contributing to blame displacement, a well-differentiated leader takes responsibility for himself and leads others to do the same even when it is difficult.
Instead of clutching to a quick-fix mentality, a well-differentiated leader embraces a trajectory towards maturity is willing to lead others through discomfort toward change.
Instead of being poorly-defined, a well-differentiated leader takes decisive stands at the risk of displeasing others and can connect without losing their identity.
There has been much said about the importance of empathy, and it is an important attribute of healthy leadership. However, we believe differentiation needs to be added to empathy for leaders to be healthy for the long-run.
We may tease each of the above out in a series but for now, my specific prompts for you are:
Where in your life is the anxiety of a relational system impacting you in a negative way?
What boundaries can you create that enable you to connect but also differentiate you from the anxiety of that system?