By: Debbie Owen on December 1, 2025
Over the last several months, Friedman and Walker have drawn me into an unexpected inner conversation, one that has reshaped how I think about leadership, identity, and the kind of person I want to become. Both authors insist that leadership is not, at its core, about motivating, influencing, fixing, or controlling others. Leadership is about…
By: Ryan Thorson on December 1, 2025
As this doctoral program concludes, I find myself reflecting on how much of leadership is interior. Strategy and structure still matter, but they are not the core. The real work happens in the unseen places, the places Friedman calls the “self of the leader” and Walker names the “backstage.” Returning to formal education was an…
By: Glyn Barrett on December 1, 2025
Friedman and Walker have not only shaped my leadership thinking but have also touched some of the hidden parts of my inner life. Their insights have revealed where anxiety, defence, and ego still linger beneath the surface of my calling. Friedman revealed how my instinct to fix others’ discomfort often masks my own reactivity. Walker,…
By: Kari on December 1, 2025
Revisiting the ideas of Edwin Friedman and Simon Walker this semester has led me to deeper layers of self-awareness, identity, and spiritual formation.[1] Their frameworks have become more than academic concepts; they have become invitations to inner transformation. Friedman’s insight that differentiated, non-anxious leaders often walk alone has touched me deeply, especially in Mauritania, where…
By: Adam Cheney on December 1, 2025
Soul and Identity Mapping: Thresholds of the Leader’s Inner Life Revisiting Friedman and Walker during this second phase of reflection has forced me to look not only at leadership theory but at the deeper terrain of my soul—the places where anxiety, identity, vocation, and grace intersect. What has emerged is a clearer understanding of how…
By: Christy on December 1, 2025
Returning to the ideas of Edwin Friedman and Simon Walker in this season of my life has felt less like reviewing leadership theory and more like examining the landscape of my inner world. Their concepts—self-differentiation, non-anxious presence, undefended leadership, ego structures—have touched the deepest places of my anxieties, defenses, and growth edges. What once felt…
By: Shela Sullivan on November 26, 2025
Friedman and Walker: Touching the Inner Life Edwin Friedman’s concept of self-differentiation has touched me most deeply in the realm of anxiety. His insistence that leaders must resist being consumed by the emotional processes of others resonates with my tendency to absorb communal tension. As Friedman notes, “The way out requires shifting our orientation…from one…
By: Joel Zantingh on November 22, 2025
Introduction Leadership in anxious times demands more than technical competence; it calls for a deep interior posture that resists the gravitational pull of fear and reactivity. Edwin Friedman’s concept of the well-differentiated leader and Simon Walker’s vision of undefended leadership converge on this point: the leader’s capacity for internal regulation amid external turbulence is the…
By: Daren Jaime on November 20, 2025
Revisiting Friedman and Walker at this stage in my leadership studies has illuminated how deeply the work of transformation is intertwined with identity, presence, and the stewardship of power. Leadership is nestled between the margins, and in between these margins, things such as clarity, stability, vulnerability, and disruption occur. Leadership features the integration of emotional…
By: Elysse Burns on November 20, 2025
Edwin Friedman’s A Failure of Nerve and Simon Walker’s The Undefended Leader offer complementary frameworks that present leadership as an internally formed reality rather than an externally performed role. Although they write from different traditions, they share a conviction that leadership’s effectiveness is inseparable from the inner life of the leader. What makes this convergence…
By: Kari on November 20, 2025
Revisiting Edwin Friedman and Simon Walker this semester has clarified how deeply leadership begins in the inner life of the leader.[1] Friedman’s emphasis on self-differentiation and non-anxious presence stands out to me now more than ever. These qualities are rare, even among seasoned leaders, yet they are essential in environments shaped by reactivity, urgency, and…
By: Noel Liemam on November 20, 2025
Introduction In my earlier engagement with leadership literature, I tended to focus on methods: how to manage conflict, resolve resistance, and guide organizations toward change. Returning to Edwin Friedman and Simon Walker, however, has shifted my attention from technique to the inner life of the leader.[1] [2] What now stands out is their shared conviction…
By: Shela Sullivan on November 19, 2025
Friedman’s Call to Self‑Differentiation Edwin Friedman’s Failure of Nerve insists that self‑differentiation is the cornerstone of effective leadership. Leaders must maintain a clear sense of identity and purpose without being consumed by the anxiety of the systems they serve. His concept of the non‑anxious presence resonates deeply in today’s climate of organizational volatility (Friedman, 2017,…
By: Chad Warren on November 19, 2025
Revisiting Edwin Friedman and Simon Walker this semester reshaped my understanding of leadership at a structural and deeply personal level. Their frameworks—one systemic, one psychological—have become interpretive keys through which I now perceive congregational dynamics, cultural patterns, and my own pastoral identity. Friedman gave me language for the emotional processes that shape every community, and…
By: Christy on November 19, 2025
Revisiting Edwin Friedman and Simon Walker has felt less like returning to two leadership theorists and more like coming back to long-held questions about the kind of leader I want to be—and the kind of person I am becoming. Their work has traveled with me through seasons of burnout, identity formation, foster care, perfectionism, and…
By: Graham English on November 19, 2025
Introduction Revisiting Edwin Friedman and Simon Walker reveals two distinct yet converging pathways into the inner life of leadership. Friedman’s A Failure of Nerve (2007) and Walker’s The Undefended Leader (2007) both invite leaders to cultivate a deeper presence amid anxiety and complexity. Friedman frames leadership as the capacity for self-differentiation and non-anxious presence within…
By: Glyn Barrett on November 18, 2025
Revisiting the writings of Edwin Friedman and Simon Walker has provided me with a renewed understanding of the inner and systemic dynamics of leadership. Friedman’s A Failure of Nerve reframes leadership not as a set of management techniques but as an act of self-definition within anxious systems. What stands out most now is his description…
By: Adam Cheney on November 18, 2025
Week 1 Reflection Draft “Consilience Mapping: Revisiting Friedman and Walker” Revisiting Edwin Friedman’s work this semester has sharpened my awareness of how deeply I am shaped as a leader by the emotional systems around me. While I still feel a sense of fuzziness around the full scope of “self-differentiation,” his language of the non-anxious presence…
By: Diane Tuttle on November 17, 2025
Anxiety permeates our world. Whether it is unresolved hurts from the past causing leadership trauma (Rowe, Wise Rowe, 11) or a current crisis, leadership carries demands that could magnify the insecurities and emotional frailties that threaten the ability of a leader to be effective, unless, of course, she is well-grounded. More than technical competence, leadership…
By: Debbie Owen on November 17, 2025
We had met once before in the larger group of ten participants, but this week the small groups—three participants plus me as the facilitator—were meeting for the first time. These smaller gatherings require engagement. The intentional design behind them is simple: healing happens through vulnerability, and vulnerability requires both safety and presence. Curt Thompson writes,…
