Dad, Am I Childish?
In this post I am going to look at Marcus Warner and Jim Wilder’s book Rare Leadership book and the importance of knowing and acting out your identity.[1]. Much of this post centers around a conversation with my youngest son, Josiah.
Josiah came home from a meeting at church one evening while I was in the middle of reading Marcus Warner and Jim Wilder’s book Rare Leadership. He walked into the kitchen and asked me, do you think I am childish? I immediately thought about emotional maturity. I asked him, in what aspect are we talking about being childish? I mentioned to him that it is important to be emotionally mature, to be able to handle his emotions without lashing out at people or becoming overly defensive (like when mom and dad get on him for not doing something). After that, I said, I felt it was important to still act like a child at times. I was thinking of Simon Walker’s The Undefended Leader, in which he discusses “Leading as a Child.”[2] Walker discusses four ways that a child shows what undefended leadership looks like: Maintaining a light and playful touch, retaining the capacity to wonder, strengthening the bonds of trust, and learning to take responsibility.[3] He ends his chapter saying “Mature childlikeness is a quality of playfulness, awareness and wonder, trust and taking responsibility that overturns society’s conventional priorities. It replaces fear with confidence and offers others courageous generosity.”[4]
That conversation stuck with me as a continued to read Rare Leadership
Walker and Wilder use Rare to not only mean something that is uncommon, but also as an acronym representing the four core habits of leadership:
R – Remain Relational—Common leaders tend to be problem focused. . . Consequently they value results and solutions more than relationships.
A – Act like yourself—As a leader, when I don’t know how to act like myself, people don’t know what to expect from me
R – Return to joy—Perhaps the single biggest factor in producing sustainable motivation is the leader’s ability to return to joy from a variety of negative emotions. Leaders who can experience upsetting emotions such as shame, anger, fear, and despair—yet possess the skills to recover quickly and help their people recover as well—are rarely overwhelmed by the situations they face
E- Endure Hardship Well—In some ways this is the goal of the whole process. Leaders who learn to suffer well are truly rare[5]
In the book Warner and Wilder suggest that our RARE Leadership skills are controlled by our Fast Track System. While the authors do not mention Daniel Kahneman, our fast track system is essentially System1 or fast thinking that “operates automatically and quickly, with little or no effort and no sense of voluntary control.”[6]
Warner and Wilder say this about our fast track system, our “Fast Track system controls how we regulate our emotions, how we remember who we are, who our people are, and how it is to act like us (that is acting like the self God gave us). In other words, it is our identity center.[7]
Based on this I asked my son a couple questions about his identity.
Me: Josiah, what is your identity?
Josiah: I’m a Christian, A child of God, I am also energetic, light-hearted, outgoing, and try to be fun.
Me: Josiah, what does it mean to act out your identity?
Josiah: To be who you are, wherever you are, regardless of circumstances (in moderation). That means wherever I am at I try to be that fun outgoing Christian, Child of God, no matter who is around; easier said than done at times he added.
One of the prototypes I am developing this semester centers around defining and outlining what an accountability relationship looks like for students who want to stop using pornography. Warner and Wilder discuss why accountability groups actually fail and that we should be creating identity groups to help people transform their lives. They write “The best coaches, pastors, teachers, managers, and leaders are the ones who instill a clear sense of identity into their group and help people understand ‘this is who we are and this is how it is like us to act’”[8]
I would encourage you to ask yourself the same question, based on your identity, what does it look like for you to act your identity?
Knowing that it is important to return to joy when we experience negative emotions, I asked Josiah another question.
Me: Josiah, how do you respond when you’re upset or criticized?
Josiah: I ultimately try my best to look past it, knowing that most of the time the person who says it has good intentions. I try to look past the hurt of the comments, quickly forgive, because I know they are not intentionally doing it to harm me. It is harder if it is someone who is intentionally trying to harm me, it is harder to forgive and forget If it is family or friends, I consider the relationship as being more important than the wound.
I believe Josiah is expressing what Warner and Wilder suggest when discussing returning to joy; “Mature leaders (and parents) are able to quiet themselves and elevate the relationship above the problems.[9] The relationships that Josiah has with friend and family are more important than anything said or done to him, and he finds absolute joy in those relationships. This reminds me of a helpful hint I was given years ago at a marriage retreat. The audience was told that when you and your spouse are having a disagreement, remember that he/she is not your enemy. I have had to remind myself of that many times over the years because I tend to take things too personally. Once I calm down, I remember that my wife is only trying to get me to see something in a different way and is not attacking me.
Is Josiah Childish? If being a fun, outgoing, energetic child of God (his identity) is being childish, then yes. But I believe he is becoming an emotionally mature, undefended young adult who knows the importance of maintaining joy in all his relationships.
[1] Marcus Warner and Jim Wilder, Rare Leadership: 4 Uncommon Habits for increasing Trust, Joy, and Engagement in the People You Lead, (Chicago, IL: Moody, 2016).
[2] Simon Walker
[3] Walker, 128-135.
[4] Walker, 135.
[5][5] Warner and Wilder, 25-26
[6] Kahneman, Daniel, Thinking, Fast and Slow. (Canada, Anchor Canada, 2013), 20.
[7] Warner and Wilder, 27.
[8] Waner and Wilder, 46.
[9] Warner and Wilder, 162-163.
About the Author
Jeff Styer
Jeff Styer lives in Northeast Ohio's Amish Country. He has degrees in Social Work and Psychology and currently works as a professor of social work at Mount Vernon Nazarene University. Jeff is married to his wife, Veronica, 25+ years. Together they have 4 beautiful children (to be honest, Jeff has 4 kids, Veronica says she is raising 5). Jeff loves the outdoors, including biking, hiking, camping, birding, and recently picked up disc golf.10 responses to “Dad, Am I Childish?”
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Hi Jeff, Wow, he sounds like he has some nice self awareness going on. Not asking for you to share the specific answer to this question but generally did he ever share what prompted him to ask the question?
What a gift as a dad to be able to have those meaningful conversations with your son. If you were talking to other parents, how would you approach the concept of RARE leadership with them as they have the important role as a leaders in the raising of the children?
Diane,
Josiah was mentoring a grade school student when this came up.
How would I approach the concept of RARE leadership with other parents. I think I would have them first reflect back on their own lives and answer the questions – What relationships were most important to you growing up and why? Were there any relationships with people you wanted to have but were unable?
Think of yourself as a kid growing up, how would others have described you? Do you still act that way? what changed and why?
As a kid, what brought the most joy to your life?
As a kid, how did you handle pain and disappointment?
I would then help them relate these answers into how they might consider raising their own children.
Wow! Thank you for sharing Jeff.
As a father and as an educator, how do you teach and encourage young people to return to joy after experiencing negative emotions or criticism?
Shela,
Great question as an educator, I really don’t know. I am seeing so much mental health issues in my students and I’m not sure how many actually experience joy. That is something I may have to explore with them.
As a parent we try to process the emotions with them. In general we are very relational and much of their joy comes from being together, joking around, playing games, being out in nature. So after processing their emotions the return to joy comes by getting them re-e gaged in the things they love.
Hi Jeff, Thank you for sharing this meaningful interaction with your son, Josiah. It sounds like he has been led well. I know you and your co-workers are experiencing a lot of uncertainty at work, and I am curious how Warner and Wilder’s thoughts on “returning to joy” resonated with you in your current work climate. Did you experience any “aha” moments?
Elysse,
Great question -Let me process this as I have not considered this. I’m not sure anyone is necessarily returning to joy right now – at work. In my personal life, I have several things that continue to bring me joy.
Warner and Wilder discuss remaining relational and continuing to act like yourself to deal with your anger. I believe most of us are doing that, although part of me feels like talking about our anger and frustration is almost forbidden and that is not healthy, those emotions need validated. The reason for not being able to discuss these is the presence of fear, am I next?
Overall, I know that people are still engaging well with their students, their teaching and other duties. But this may be a good question to pose to the community – How are we as a community returning to joy?
Great post, Jeff! Kudos to you and your wife for raising an emotionally aware and mature child. Thanks for bringing in Simon Walker’s book. The idea of a leader who exhibits “playfulness, awareness and wonder, trust and taking responsibility” pairs nicely with RARE leadership. Your blog reminded me of the importance of children and in Scripture, especially in Matthew 18:3. “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” No questions this week, just appreciation for the reminder to not neglect those important child-like tendancies.
Thanks Kari for your comment.
Jeff, thanks for sharing this real life example. It’s interesting that Adam Cheney also shared something from family life. Do you think it’s more challenging to apply the principles in the book in family life or work life? Why?
Graham,
Thanks for the question. As I think about it, I think it is more difficult to do at work (assuming you have a healthy family). Sometimes I think it is hard to act like yourself at work. There are cultural demands that dictate how we act, things we say that really do not always reflect who we are or how we are feeling (frontstage). At home, my family knows who I am and when I am not acting like myself. They also know what brings me joy and assist in ensuring that opportunities for joy are offered. My family knows my backstage very well.