Consilience in the Inner Life of the Leader: Friedman and Walker in Conversation
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 meaningful is that two very different traditions—systems theory and ego psychology—arrive at the same conclusion: leaders shape their contexts most powerfully through the quality of their inner life. Both authors contend that the leader’s emotional processes, self-awareness, and capacity for grounded presence constitute the primary foundation upon which all relational and organizational leadership rests.
Friedman Revisited: Self-Differentiation and Responsible Presence
What stands out most in Friedman’s work is his commitment to the idea that leadership begins internally—with the leader’s own emotional maturity and clarity of conviction. He famously observes that “the way out… requires shifting our orientation…from one that focuses on techniques that motivate others to one that focuses on the leader’s own presence and being.”[1] Self-differentiation remains the cornerstone of his framework: leaders must define themselves without cutting off from others, maintaining connectedness while resisting the emotional pressures of anxious systems.
Friedman addresses boundaries not as rigid lines but as the leader’s capacity to remain a self within relationship—clear, connected, and responsible. He warns that anxious systems tempt leaders toward reactivity, herding, blaming, and quick-fix thinking.[2] As Peter L. Steinke observes in the Foreword to A Failure of Nerve, “we need to prepare ourselves for increasing our maturity, which means taking responsibility for our own emotional functioning”[3] a statement that captures the heart of Friedman’s project. The leader, for Friedman, becomes a kind of immune system—providing integrity not through control but through well-regulated presence.
Walker Revisited: Undefendedness, Ego, and Power
Walker likewise anchors leadership in the interior life, but he approaches it through the lenses of ego, power, and vulnerability. Undefended leaders are those who have “fought and won the war within themselves,”[4] becoming free enough to use power transparently rather than defensively. Walker’s four ego patterns—Adapting, Defending, Shaping, and Defining—expose the subtle ways leaders protect themselves, often without realizing it.
Where Friedman stresses emotional process, Walker emphasizes the psychological strategies leaders use to manage insecurity or seek approval. Power, for Walker, is unavoidable; the question is whether leaders overpower, under-empower, or genuinely empower those they serve. His insight that “leadership is about who you are, not what you know”[5] echoes Friedman’s focus on presence, but deepens it by showing how inner insecurity can distort leadership even when outward behaviors appear competent.
Intersections, Divergences, and Threshold Concepts
Both authors converge around a threshold concept: leadership is fundamentally an interior task. Growth in emotional maturity (Friedman) and freedom from defensive ego scripts (Walker) forms the foundation for trustworthy, resilient leadership. Their shared emphasis on presence—non-anxious for Friedman, undefended for Walker—suggests that leaders lead most powerfully through who they are, not what they do.
They diverge, however, in emphasis. Friedman writes as a systems theorist: he attends to emotional process, triangles, sabotage, and chronic anxiety. Walker writes as a psychologist: he attends to attachment needs, ego scripts, and the temptations of power. The tension between their frameworks enriches the reading. Friedman pushes leaders toward clarity and responsibility; Walker pushes them toward vulnerability and self-awareness. Together they offer a fuller picture of internal formation.
Complementary Insights: Healing, Trust, and Influence
While Friedman and Walker anchor this reflection, the complementary insights from Rowe and Rowe, Cockram, and Schein demonstrate how their themes resonate across broader conversations in theology, psychology, and leadership studies. Rowe and Rowe’s Healing Leadership Trauma extends this shared foundation by showing that the inner work Friedman and Walker demand rarely begins on neutral ground. Leaders often carry unhealed wounds, and “trauma causes people to remain stuck in interpreting the present in light of an unchanging past.”[6] Healing becomes essential if leaders hope to regulate anxiety or release defensive patterns. Their work affirms that undefendedness and self-differentiation both require deep emotional repair.
Steve Cockram adds another dimension through relational trust. Trust requires that leaders consistently empower rather than overpower, functioning as “Liberators” in the lives of others.[7] Cockram’s categories of personality power, positional power, and personal presence clarify how Friedman’s and Walker’s internal postures inevitably shape relational dynamics. A reactive or defended leader distorts these powers; a grounded one stewards them well.
Schein and Schein complement these insights by showing how the leader’s inner life shapes organizational culture. Their claim that “leadership is always a relationship”[8] affirms the emotional and psychological dimensions highlighted by Friedman and Walker. Cultures marked by openness, trust, and collaboration emerge only when leaders embody the internal maturity needed to create psychological safety. Their emphasis on building “something new and better”[9] reinforces that technical fixes alone cannot transform a system; relational integrity must lead the way.
Conclusion: Inner Work as Leadership Work
Leadership is exercised publicly, but it is sustained internally. Friedman captures this with his claim that “mature leadership begins with the leader’s capacity to take responsibility for his or her own emotional being and destiny,”[10] a line that crystallizes the shared conviction of both him and Walker: leaders cannot offer clarity, courage, or steadiness unless they are first attending to the emotional patterns within themselves.
Walker’s undefended leader embodies this inner freedom—able to use power responsibly because they are no longer driven by fear, ego, or the need for approval. Rowe and Rowe show why this is so difficult, demonstrating how unhealed pain can lock leaders into reactive cycles. Cockram and Schein extend this insight by emphasizing that the health of a group or culture ultimately reflects the inner life of those who guide it.
Taken together, these voices press the same point: inner work is not preparation for leadership; it is leadership. Systems will not move toward trust, openness, or resilience unless the leader first embodies those qualities. External techniques may support growth, but it is the leader’s internal formation that makes genuine transformation possible.
[1] Edwin H. Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix (New York: Seabury Books, 2007), 2, Kindle.
[2] Friedman, A Failure of Nerve, 47, Kindle.
[3] Peter L. Steinke, foreword to Edwin H. Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix (New York: Seabury Books, 2007), 9, Kindle.
[4] Simon P. Walker, Leading Out of Who You Are: The Undefended Leader (Carlisle: Piquant Editions, 2007), 23–24, Kindle.
[5] Walker, Leading Out of Who You Are, 17, Kindle.
[6] Nicholas and Sheila Rowe, Healing Leadership Trauma (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2023), 11, Kindle.
[7] Steve Cockram, “Dealing with the Past,” Relational Intelligence at Work (GiANT Worldwide newsletter, January 9, 2024), accessed November 20, 2025, https://www.giantworldwide.com/newsletter/dealing-with-the-past.
[8] Edgar H. Schein and Peter A. Schein, Humble Leadership: The Power of Relationships, Openness, and Trust (Oakland: Berrett-Koehler, 2018), ix, Kindle.
[9] Schein and Schein, Humble Leadership, 4, Kindle.
[10] Friedman, A Failure of Nerve, 273, Kindle.
About the Author
Elysse Burns
3 responses to “Consilience in the Inner Life of the Leader: Friedman and Walker in Conversation”
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Hi Dr. Elysse,
Being in a foreign land, being a minority and having to mingle within a culture that made contradict your belief, how do you personally practice containing anxiety in your leadership, rather than rushing to resolve it?
Nicely done, Elysse. I like your back and forth with Friedman and Walker, then the discussion on where they diverge and complement each other, then at the end, the realization that leadership is exercised publicly but sustained internally. Have you found a particular practice or habit that resonates with you that helps you grow in undefendedness and self-differentiation?
Elysee, thanks for sharing and i appreciate how you blended Friedman and Walker throughout your post. you highlighted Walker’s four ego patterns of Adapting, Defending, Shaping, and Defining as how leaders protect themselves.Which best describes you?