Kindle Notes & Highlights
Started, April 13, 2019, Nashville, Tennessee
Started, September 14, 2025, Gallatin, Tennessee
The system perspective gave me the vantage point from which to view emotional process, whether I was observing a family, a congregation, a hospital, an educational unit, a small business, or a large company. I learned that six major triggers incited anxiety in these systems, and no one trigger affected the emotional system more than the leadership, whether the leaders were parents, priests, principals, presidents, board chairpersons, owners, or chief operating officers. How any one of them handled self in the emotional system was more determinate than anything else in terms of outcome.
Viruses, demagogues, parasites, bullies, sexual predators, and name-calling blamers function in the same way. They have no boundaries, they do not respect the boundaries of others (and obviously go where they don’t belong), they must have it their own way, and they never learn from their experience. Being in a role of leader, one may be tempted more than others to be a transgressor or trespasser if one thinks of self as entitled or special.
How you handle yourself in times of change, ambiguity, or adversity is the touchstone of leadership. It is not how you persuade, cajole, or mandate others to behave.
Humans are more than chickens, cats, and horses; we think, reason, and feel before we act. Animals do not read manuals on how to behave, nor do they think about things before they act. Instinct takes care of it all. But we make decisions that are scrutinized and make sense. Even then, we are subject to our impulses.
As for leadership, until and unless you recognize the power of your own instinctual life, you will continue to assess outside conditions, persons, or ideas to be the cause of your or others’ nervous unrest.
If the leader becomes anxious and forfeits calm reflection, the system is essentially leaderless. Anxiety tumbles down like loose rock dislodged from a high position. In a time of Uproar, the leader cannot be as anxious as everyone else.
Differentiation is about maturity. Your maturity is determined by how well you balance two emotional needs of being separate and close.
Nothing complex or controversial happens without confusion, resistance, or emotional reactivity. All tensions, traumas, and transitions leave a trail of anxiety. This is where you enter the story. Anxiety alone will not harm or endanger a system. How anxiety is addressed will determine the outcome more than anything else. Your responsible and enlightened behavior is the touchstone.
Because of the infectious nature of anxiety, the leader’s apprehensiveness contaminates the whole system.
People seek relief from anxiety. Humans are known to bind anxiety by finding scapegoats. Blame displacement tends to be focused on two functioning positions, regardless of who may be in those positions—namely, the most responsible and the most vulnerable.
The non-anxious presence means we are aware of our own anxiety and the anxiety of others, but we will not let either determine our actions. Obviously this means that we have some capacity to tolerate pain both in ourselves and in others.
In the Biosphere in Arizona, a three-acre greenhouse in the desert, people noticed that the fruit was falling off the trees prematurely. What had happened? Inside this encapsulated environment, wind, a force that challenges the trees’ branches and strengthens them, is absent. Without wind, the branches do not gain sufficient strength to hold the fruit to the time of maturation.
Opportune times to challenge usually appear when the community hits bottom; real events open eyes and sharpen awareness; a sudden, shattering experience occurs; or the system is in a learning mode and someone capitalizes on it.
Seldom, if ever, does change happen because at first a majority votes for it.
If the leader adapts his functioning to the weakest members, he enables their dependency, encourages their happy ignorance, and reinforces their helplessness. To protect a system from bad news or upsetting changes is to admit that the system is weak and fragile, too brittle to be challenged. The threshold for pain is low, and the opportunity for changing is negligible.
For whenever a “family” is driven by anxiety, what will also always be present is a failure of nerve among its leaders. —Edwin Friedman
It is wise to remember that whenever someone cuts off from someone significant in their life, anxiety continues, but the awareness of it diminishes. The anxiety not resolved in one relationship tends to be acted out in another one unknowingly.
Not all conflicts are equal. Some are harsh and bitter. Yet many conflicts can contribute to the growth of a group and make a positive contribution. The quality of leadership applied to the situation significantly determines the outcome.
What distinguishes the human family from the rest of nature is the human capacity to observe automatic behavior and substitute principles for impulses, developing more thoughtful approaches to life’s challenges.
In the early stages of a conflict, it is almost impossible to overinform. As much information as possible is needed. Providing information tends to minimize the need for people to create information for themselves through gossip and embellishments of what they have heard. By communicating forthrightly, leaders also treat the members as mature adults who can handle whatever information is shared, not as children who need to be protected from bad news.
To dislodge the ensuing impasse, an outside third party with a more objective set of eyes is needed. Select someone outside of the emotional system who will be fair and frank. The people involved in the dispute are too close to what is happening to get an overview or to get a sense of perspective. It is also difficult for them to carry out the thinking operations necessary to bring clarity to a situation when emotional factors run strong.
Peace is often preferred over justice. People can resist or be hesitant about taking stands, making decisions, or charting a course of action that would offend or upset the community. By placing a premium on togetherness, they play into the hands of the most dependent people, who can threaten to incite disharmony as a way of receiving what they want. When superficial harmony prevails, the pursuit of justice is sacrificed.
Secrets—that is, hidden agendas and invisible loyalties—in most cases need to be brought to light.
Sabotage of the process for dealing with conflict should be expected. The usual saboteurs will be those who are losing control or not getting what they want from it.
Final or perfect solutions are not available. Conflict leaves things messy. The best solutions to insolvable problems are the approximate solutions—ones that prepare a system for new learning and a new beginning.
“Every great leader,” Howard Gardner said, “is a great storyteller.” Another sage remarked that the six most powerful words in any language are “Let me tell you a story.”
System theory contends that one’s level of maturity, not flash and feathers, is what defines leadership. No system will rise above the level of maturity of its leaders. Leaders, therefore, work on their own development and growth. Leaders essentially seek to understand their own functioning, use principles to instruct action, and work on defining themselves.
Finished, May 17, 2019, Coble Store
