Consilience, Sandpaper, Friedman and Walker
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 and intellectual skills with emotional maturity, systems thinking, the awareness of ego, and more. Unpacking these six questions, a dominant theme emerged: leadership failure cannot be reduced to mere skill; it is rooted in a leader’s inward life and relational posture.
Friedman taught me early that leadership is, at its heart, the capacity to stay differentiated within an anxious system. Revisiting his writing this time around and his call for differentiation, I better recognize that differentiation is not a tactic for conflict management; rather, it is, in a deeper sense, a radical posture of clarity and courage. I have often challenged my own team at home to approach the work we do from a proactive rather than a reactive posture. Friedman contends that anxious systems will always try to pull a leader back into emotional fusion and frantic overfunctioning because it keeps everyone settled in the old, comfortable status quo, even if it is dysfunctional. If change is the desired outcome, Friedman says, for that type of change to occur leaders who can both take the first step and maintain the stamina to follow through in the face of predictable resistance and sabotage are necessary. [1]
As Friedman speaks to leadership posture, Simon Walker also speaks to the internal posture. Walker exposes the ways my own ego seeks security, control, or affirmation, both subtly and aggressively. He highlights the internal structures that influence how leaders wield power before making public decisions. A major takeaway for me in this was Walker’s argument that the undefended leader is not one who lacks vulnerability, but one who has relinquished the need for psychological armor. As we become more aware of our participation in the ecology of life around us, we become aware of our appropriate scale, humanity and interdependence. [2]
A Threshold Concept
A major threshold concept emerged for me concerning anxiety. Often described as emotional a new threshold I uncovered how it is actually more relational and systemic. Friedman writes that the leader’s job is not to soothe discomfort but to ready and steady the system long enough to produce change. This speaks to adaptive leadership as premature soothing prevents transformation. Any renaissance, anywhere, depends primarily not only on new data and techniques but also on leaders’ capacity to separate themselves from the surrounding emotional climate. [3] This shift demonstrates courage in a more excellent way, as courage can be defined in not rescuing people from anxiety but refusing to protect them from it too quickly.
The Tension and a Threshold Concept All In One
As I think of the dissonance and tension between the two authors, I am reminded of sandpaper. One side is abrasive, coarse, and intentionally rough. The other side is smooth, steady, and generally easy to hold. The ultimate goal of sandpaper is to strip away layers, smooth imperfections, and prepare a surface for something new; however, the most important thing is that both sides are necessary. Friedman and Walker are sandpaper. Friedman calls for firmness, clarity, and boundaries; Walker calls for vulnerability, openness, and undefended identity.leading with nothing to lose liberates us from fear and gives us an abandoned freedom to give everything we have to what we are doing [4] Looking through the landscape of todays leadership era, Friedman’s rough edge and Walkers smooth side can both prepare leaders for today”s challenges.
Consilience
Putting Friedman and Walker together creates a striking convergence as both authors share the same perspective that leadership is less about performance and technique and more about presence. For Friedman, presence is defined by differentiation; for Walker, presence emerges from the undefended self, the one who has surrendered the ego’s compulsions and learned to exercise power without fear. Distinct in their differences, the two intersect on an important leadership principle, that a leader’s being precedes the leader’s doing. The rise and fall of leadership does not hinge upon the failure of strategy or personal charm, but inwardly through inward clarity and externally through relational clarity. Parker J. Palmer confirms this thought reinforcing the importance of inner work, stating we lead from who we are, before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am.[5]
Conclusion
Pairing the two authors together lays the groundwork for adaptive and transformational leadership. Presence and resilience are necessary, as well as being grounded, relational, and non-anxious. Freidman suggests that what is required is a fundamental reorientation of our thinking processes, allowing leaders to evaluate information in the context of emotional variables. [6] Walker taught me not to protect myself with the armor of ego. The solution must lie, in fact, in locating relationships with the world, with others, and perhaps, uniquely with Another, in which we are both trusted and able to trust. [7] In the end, leadership is not just a practical application but a spiritual, emotional, and intellectual application all in the same.
[1]Friedman, Edwin H., A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix (New York: Church Publishing Incorporated, 2017), 37
[2] Simon Walker, The Undefended Leader, (Piquant Editions, 2010), 131.
[3] Friedman, 37.
[4] Walker, 305.
[5] Palmer, Parker J. Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000
[6] Friedman 105
[7] Walker, 97.
About the Author
Daren Jaime
2 responses to “Consilience, Sandpaper, Friedman and Walker”
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Hi Daren,
How do you personally practice containing anxiety in your leadership, rather than rushing to resolve it?
Daren, your comment “how deeply the work of transformation is intertwined with identity, presence, and the stewardship of power” resonated with me. Specifically, the idea of stewardship of power. When you think of being a steward of power, how does it change your approach to it?