Leader Breakthru — Breakthru Blog

Many of you have heard me use Edwin Friedman’s defintion of a leader: “A leader is a self defined person with a non-anxious presence.” At the core of Friedman’s message for the home, church, businesses, organizations and government is the need for differentiated leaders.

In his final book, “A Failure of Nerve” (that was published after his death in 1996), he goes further both in unpacking how self-differentiation is not only essential, but also is at the heart of why the American fabric, as we know it, continues to unravel.

Fascinating book. Even more fascinating is his view that the unmotivated are not brought into the game with more insights, but rather because they experience and begin to see soemthing different. It is not the cognitive but the relational processes that will cause people to actually desire to participate in the change. To see the change through leaders who live different, and differentiated from the problem.

But for this to happen, we needs leaders who have nerve. Who have the capacity to stand separate from the organizations they lead that have become toxic (and most have).  They themselves must work hard on their our definition, align themselves to God’s shaping,  deal with their “stuff,” and at peace with they are, and who they are not. Most do not, and inflict their pain and stuff on those they lead.

To lead today, and return people back to a time of innovation and adventure requires the leader to be different. Someone who is clear about his or her own direction, goals and issues. Leaders who are at peace with themselves. Less likely to become lost in the anxious issues that change raises. The greatest way you can influence your world and those you seek to influence, is to have the courage to be yourself.

Listen to this…

“The colossal misunderstanding of our time is the assumption that insight will work with people who are unmotivated to change. If you want your child, spouse, client or boss to shape up, stay connected while changing yourself rather than trying to fix them.”

For years I have been saying that personal renewal was the key.

It is the key for leaders to lead, and it is the key for organizations to change and move forward. Most agree, but few have truly embraced this truth. We are still infatuated with our methods and skills.

Differeniated leaders are our best hope to becoming the people called to influence our world, and for organizations to once again be free to innovate, adventurous, and can lead us to something different. And non-differentiated leaders abound, continuing to wound and hurt good people all for the sake of building some “great” organization.

Needless to say I recommend the book. Nice to read the thoughts of someone who is saying the same thing I have tried to share through the years, only better.

So what does this all actually mean? Nice reflection, but what does it say, and what will I truly choose to not say, but do and live in the now and here… the nowhere?

The first answer for me is the acknowledgment that comes from the picture I chose for these blogs. It depicts a road leading to Jerusalem. In the middle is a “rut” that serves to keep wagons on the proper side of the road. I am in a mental/emotional rut. I actually feel trapped. I have been able to break free in the past, but not this time. There now are so many thoughts within agruing that I “can’t” or that the “won’t” live any different. That I will write all this up, but nothing will change.

“Lord, I chose to believe that you are leading me in this journey. That I can live a life of trust. And that I can live each day differently… focused on today and not consumed about worry for tomorrow. Help me Lord to be present… to love life as it unfolds, instead of missing today because of my concerns and fears for tomorrow.”

The effort I feel to free myself from all the concerns and the fuzziness actually involves a death. There is a death required to live in the present… to take each day as it comes, and not get so far ahead. It’s a choice I think I have been reluctant to make… and something I have not admitted out loud… will I be a self-serving (protecting) life, or a living to my end serving others? Will it be compassion for others, or self-centeredness. I use to live with a greater focus on others, then came the protection because of hurt.

“Lord, I chose to believe that you are leading me in this journey. That I can be free again. Free to be a child, and too quick  the need to protect myself. Like I protected the kids from dangers and hurts when they were small, help me to hide in your protection, so I can live again. I have not been living, I have been hiding. Help me Lord to live different.”

So what’s the balance I feel God is prompting? I have abandoned living a disciplined, daily life, and having order to my life, and adopted running and responding; taking on more. I desire to let go of worry, and to live each day with greater freedom, order and joy. I wan to say no, and to love knowing I am free to do that. But, it can only be if I choose to trust. To live in the present, and not in the future. To feel and experience the now and the here.

“Lord, I chose to believe that you are leading me in this journey. Help me Lord to break free from this rut and to live again, in the present.”