Breaking Emotional Gridlock
“For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?”
Jesus, Matthew 16:26, Mark 8:36, Luke 9:25
In a 2023-2024 survey of the severity of societal risks, the World Economic Forum found the following top ten risks as the most immediate concerns in a 2-year timeframe [1]:
- Misinformation and disinformation
- Extreme weather events
- Societal polarization
- Cyber insecurity
- Interstate armed conflict
- Lack of economic opportunity
- Inflation
- Involuntary migration
- Economic downturn
- Pollution
Which of these things is not like the other? Take another look and see what you think.
We have already reached a point where discussion and consideration of different views, especially complex or nuanced issues or views, is very difficult. It seems to me that if our societies continue down a path of increasing polarization, we will have no room left to even talk about the remainder of the issues, let alone thoughtfully respond to them.
In A Failure of Nerve, Friedman describes emotional triangles and their effects [2], proposing that the relationship between any two stakeholders is actually a relationship between the two stakeholders and a third issue, relationship, or thing that they have in common, resulting in a triangle. In addition to them being self-preserving and resistant to change, emotional triangles become interlocking and self-reinforcing. Two seemingly unrelated problems may actually have the same root cause. In a simple example, both my work performance and my dietary habits may have roots in my favourite pet being lost. However, my work performance could also suffer as a result of feelings of inadequacy due to a relationship with a parent—something not immediately apparent.
Whether considering personal problems or world-scale issues, we become prone to emotional gridlock as a result of multiple self-reinforcing triangles. Want to talk about gun rights? We will need to discuss views on racial reconciliation too. How about economic opportunity? Then we need to discuss education. Climate change? Not without discussing the effects of mass migration or consumerism.
It can be dizzying. The issues of our day are emotionally charged even at face value, and become moreso when we consider the manner of how we communicate about them. If “societal regression has perverted the use of empathy into a disguise for anxiety,” [3] then we are very anxious indeed.
What is the solution to this?
An immune system [4]. Just as biological organisms need immune systems to survive and defend against external threats, groups of humans need self-differentiated leaders who know and understand themselves, and others, well enough to maintain integrity against the threats they face.
However, the cost is responsibility. If the stress of a system transfers to the most responsible party [5], the differentiated leader who takes responsibility for their own emotional state should expect to be on the receiving end of a number of challenges, as Friedman describes [6].
What does this mean for our AI-fearing, weather-watching, fact-checking, economically-repressed and socially-regressed society?
It means we need leaders who are willing to pay huge costs from vast reserves of emotional capital. Perhaps in that light it is not surprising that many leaders with significant responsibility develop unhealthy responses to crises or coping mechanisms that sabotage: corporate leaders who deceive their stakeholders [7]; church leaders found living duplicitously [8]; political leaders who accept funds for their campaign finances in exchange for lobbying support [9]. I’m not justifying the failures of such leaders to maintain their integrity, but identifying what appears, by Friedman’s model, to be root cause: deficient or depleted immune systems and a loss of differentiation.
Maybe I’m naive or overly simplistic, but I wonder if we would make an awful lot more headway on pressing issues, whether on a global scale or within a small team or family, if we had a foundation of character and moral authority from which to operate.
So, this week’s outcome of thinking is a rudimentary playbook for breaking emotional gridlock that I have written for myself so I can avoid losing my soul, as Jesus describes. If you find it useful too, excellent. If not, I’d love to hear why I’m wrong or how you think it could be improved.
- Accept responsibility for your thinking: whether you are right or wrong, it is your thinking. Outsourcing it is irresponsible.
- Accept responsibility for your actions: values are revealed not by what is said, but by behaviour. Behaviour is the manifestation of emotion and thinking.
- Reject anxiety: once you have accepted responsibility for your own thinking and actions, accept that the rest is out of your control. This includes others’ thinking and behaviour and environmental circumstances that you don’t manage. The best you can do is influence.
- Keep showing up: leadership is about energy, not information [10], and a good deal of success is attributable to not giving up, including after failure.
- Expect sabotage: either from without, or from within. From without when a hostile environment threatens identity and integrity. From within, when errors and weaknesses manifest. While they can have consequences, both are recoverable. Even better to be prepared for them.
Notes
[1] “These Are the Biggest Global Risks We Face in 2024 and Beyond,” World Economic Forum, January 10, 2024, [https://www.weforum.org/stories/2024/01/global-risks-report-2024/](https://www.weforum.org/stories/2024/01/global-risks-report-2024/).
[2] Edwin H. Friedman, _A Failure of Nerve, Revised Edition: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix, Revised Edition_ (La Vergne: Church Publishing Incorporated, 2017), 217-220.
[3] Ibid, 143.
[4] Ibid, 193.
[5] Ibid, 20, 234
[6] Ibid, 260-261.
[7] “Enron,” Page, Federal Bureau of Investigation, accessed February 26, 2025, [https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/enron](https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/enron).
[8] “Churches in the Dallas Area Grapple With Scandal and Controversy”, The New York Times, October 03 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/03/us/churches-dallas-fort-worth-sexual-abuse.html
[9] “These Senators Received The Biggest Checks From Pharma Companies Testifying Tuesday”, Forbes, February 26 2019, https://www.forbes.com/sites/michelatindera/2019/02/26/these-senators-received-the-biggest-checks-from-pharma-companies-testifying-drug-pricing-abbvie-sanofi-merck-pfizer/
[10] Friedman, 134.
About the Author
Joff Williams
I help communities and people discover their identity and purpose by discovering the identity and intent of their Creator. I am a follower of Jesus, husband, father, son, sibling, music nerd, recovering IT nerd, just an all-around nerd nerd, and mediocre but happy runner. My work involves leading and loving the communities of Mercy Ships, an international hospital ship mission deeply rooted in the love of Jesus.6 responses to “Breaking Emotional Gridlock”
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I participated in a training last year that developed this concept of the triangle. The objective was to promote dialog, not resolve conflict. In our polarized society, conflict resolution feels noble and misguided. Promoting dialog for getting to the underlying beliefs can draw us closer together, even when we don’t agree on the action.
I have no criticism of your list. By itself, rejecting anxiety might be easier said than done. A healthy outlook is more likely within the context of the other four.
Joff, I appreciate your list to avoid losing your soul. I make many, many lists of important principles and i enjoy comparing them over the decades to reflect on what shifted my thinking.
I find it fascinating how much we all as humans want to avoid responsibility and I appreciate you having that on your list. I watch my own instinctive reactions to avoid it and then the increasingly (I hope) fast progression to humility and commitment to learn. But the instinct of self protection is so powerful. Self awareness is surely the key, alongside reducing shame for our humanity? Those enable us to keep showing up, take responsibility for our thinking and actions and be able to lift ourselves up from the anxiety that comes from fear of failure?
Great insights, Betsy. You are more experienced in the area of cognitive functioning than I am, so if we disagreed then I would weigh your opinion seriously, but I think I am very much agreed with you on this. Self-awareness seems to be the key. I think Friedman would too: “A leader’s major job is to understand his or her self” (p.206, “Take Five”, though authored posthumously).
Joff, I appreciate your expansion on the Emotional Triangle and a leader’s Differentiation. At the end of your blog, you mention “Reject Anxiety.” Do you have any advice for the person trying to reject anxiety but torn as they watch the hurt and/or self-implosion of others?
Thanks, Darren. I think this is where rubber hits the road. It’s easy to talk about self-differentiation in a blog post. It’s hard to live it when those we love hurt or sabotage themselves. My advice isn’t really my own, it’s Paul’s: Romans 12:2, being transformed by the renewing of the mind in order to know what is good. I need it all the time!
I recall Friedman writing that there is a space for empathy, but that it can only be afforded after the leader has been able to regulate the anxiety in the system (p.146, “Survival in a hostile environment”)
Your thoughts about the complexity of addressing today’s issues are significant. The interconnectedness of these challenges, alongside societal polarization, is seen as a web of problems that grow tighter with every attempt to address them. Friedman’s concept of emotional triangles correlates in understanding these dynamics, where issues become self-reinforcing and resistant to change.
Solutions may begin with a shift in how conversations are approached. Polarization is a barrier to meaningful dialogue, and the need for leaders who can lower the emotional intensity and encourage thoughtful interaction is important. Calm and steady engagement is essential in such discussions.
As you wrote, the interconnected nature of these issues is unavoidable. Your are right, economic opportunity, is connected to education or systemic inequalities. As Climate change is linked with migration and consumer behavior. Acknowledging these overlaps is important in developing effective approaches.
I believe empathy is key to progress. Genuine efforts to listen and understand can break us free from emotional gridlock. Progress can be slow but the potential for rebuilding productive conversations remain a hopeful possibility.
Thanks for your thought provoking blog post!