Even AI Can’t Do Word Counts Well
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 continues to resonate in ways that feel both theologically grounded and personally actionable. I see more clearly that we live in a society marked by chronic anxiety—an age of rapid media cycles, constant digital intrusion, and information overload. As Friedman argues, anxiety is not merely a psychological state but an ecological environment.[1] Leading in 2025 means leading in a fundamentally anxious system. For me, this has made the call to cultivate a non-anxious presence not just helpful but essential. Knowing who I am as a child of God and a leader anchors me amid the anxious currents of our time. My own blog reflections on parenting and adoption trauma have shown me how differentiation appears in lived experience: stepping off the “treadmill” of reactive parenting and learning to carry myself with calm groundedness has changed the trajectory of my leadership at home and beyond.
In a similar way, rereading Simon Walker has illuminated the profound freedom of the “undefended life.”[2] Several of his statements land as threshold ideas for me—ideas I cannot unknow. Walker’s claim that “only the person who is secure… can be truly undefended, truly free”[3] reframes leadership not as posture or technique but as identity. I find myself drawn deeply to his imagery of front stage and backstage. His model helps me name a tension I have felt for years: what must be visible to the audience, and what must remain unseen? As I wrote earlier this semester, living in a Kenyan village with no curtains taught me that the distinctions between frontstage and backstage are often fluid—and that integrity means learning to live the same life in both spaces. Walker helps me see that power is not something I must defend or protect. Rather, power becomes an offering—something to steward, share, and surrender.
The intersection of Friedman and Walker has created meaningful dissonance for me, and that dissonance has become fertile ground. Friedman’s emphasis on emotional boundaries and Walker’s call to vulnerability can feel in tension—one calling for firmness, the other for openness. Yet both ultimately call me toward the same form of grounded presence. I increasingly see their models not as competing but as complementary: Friedman steadies my inner landscape, while Walker frees my outer posture. Together, they form a kind of paradox: to be both non-anxious and undefended, to lead from strength without defensiveness and from vulnerability without instability. I recognize how this aligns with Schein’s vision of humble leadership,[4] where cultural intelligence and relational authenticity create the conditions for real trust. In my own reflection on “Immigrant Beach,” I noted that humility is the pathway to authentic relationships in complex cultural spaces, a theme I see echoed across all three authors.[5]
Several threshold concepts have reshaped not only how I lead but who I am while leading. Being a non-anxious presence was the first. Living undefended was the second. Both require relinquishing control, releasing ego, and accepting that I cannot—and need not—manage every outcome. Jason Clark’s reminder that “it does not diminish me to consider this view” has become a quiet mantra. It gives me permission to enter the swampy lowlands that Bentley describes without feeling threatened or destabilized. These inner crossings feel irreversible; I cannot return to older patterns of ego protection or anxious reactivity.
As I integrate these insights with other authors this semester, patterns of consilience emerge with striking clarity. Theologically, the freedom to live undefended emerges from Christ’s liberating work—freedom from fear, from approval-seeking, from the need to justify myself. Psychologically, Dweck helps me see how fixed mindsets can constrain both leaders and those they lead, while a growth mindset creates space for resilience and change.[6]
Socially and developmentally, Haidt’s analysis of the anxious generation reveals that we inhabit a culture wired for reactivity, making Friedman’s call to non-anxious leadership even more urgent.[7]
Cognitively, Agarwal and Kahneman underscore how unconscious biases shape decision-making, inviting leaders to cultivate greater awareness—both of themselves and of others.[8]
And existentially, Rowe and Rowe’s work on leadership trauma highlights how past wounds shape the nervous system, requiring healing and attachment renewal if leaders are to flourish.[9]
Taken together, these authors reveal a web of converging insights: leadership is always spiritual, always psychological, always relational, and always systemic.
These integrated insights have shaped my understanding of leadership presence, power, and resilience in profound ways. I find myself stepping into new roles with renewed confidence—not the confidence of self-promotion, but the quiet maturity that comes from leading out of identity rather than insecurity. I increasingly see power as something to share, particularly with women whose leadership has too often been constrained in Christian spaces. My role is not to guard the stage but to invite others onto it. In this sense, leadership is no longer something I perform; it is something I inhabit.
Summary
Across these readings, I am learning that mature leadership flows from a securely rooted self—a self-grounded in Christ, aware of its biases, healed from past wounds, undefended in posture, and calm amid anxiety. The consilience of Friedman, Walker, and my broader readings offers a map for leadership identity that is integrated, whole, and deeply human. As I continue in this journey, I sense a growing capacity to lead with presence, humility, and resilience—markers not simply of technique, but of inner formation.
[1] Edwin H. Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix, 10th anniversary revised edition, ed. Margaret M. Treadwell and Edward W. Beal (Church Publishing, 2017).
[2] Simon Walker, Leading Out of Who You Are, The Undefended Leader Trilogy 1 (Piquant Editions Ltd., 2007).
[3] Walker, Leading Out of Who You Are, 102.
[4] Edgar H. Schein and Peter A. Schein, Humble Leadership, Second Edition: The Power of Relationships, Openness, and Trust, Second Edition (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2023).
[5] He Had Me at Long Walks on the Beach, n.d., accessed November 18, 2025, https://blogs.georgefox.edu/dlgp/he-had-me-at-long-walks-on-the-beach/.
[6] Carol Dweck, Mindset: Changing the Way You Think to Fulfil Your Potential, Revised edition (Robinson, 2017).
[7] Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness (Penguin Press, 2024).
[8] Pragya Agarwal, Sway: Unravelling Unconscious Bias (Bloomsbury Sigma, 2021).
[9] Nicholas Rowe and Sheila Wise Rowe, Healing Leadership Trauma: Finding Emotional Health and Helping Others Flourish, 1st ed (InterVarsity Press, 2024).
About the Author
Adam Cheney
I grew up in California, spent five years living along the beautiful coast of Kenya and now find myself working with refugees in the snow crusted tundra of Minnesota. My wife and I have seven children, four of whom have been adopted. I spend my time drinking lots of coffee, working in my garden, and baking sourdough bread.8 responses to “Even AI Can’t Do Word Counts Well”
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Thanks Adam. In your own leadership, which of the two practices, non-anxious (Friedman) and undefended (Walker) has proven hardest to maintain in real time, and what has most helped you stay grounded when those tensions surface?
Adam,
As I read Friedman’s book I was reminded of how often as a young parent I fell into reactivity and was not well differentiated. I appreciate your (or AI’s) comment “My role is not to guard the stage but to invite others onto it. In this sense, leadership is no longer something I perform; it is something I inhabit.”
Throughout the program, what is the most influential threshold concept you encountered and how has that impacted your growth.
Thanks Adam. Well Done. I especially like, “Friedman steadies my inner landscape, while Walker frees my outer posture.” How are the front stage and back stage (inner and outer) lives integrating in your life currently this week?
Nicely written, Adam. As you move into your new work-related role, are there any strategies or practices you might use to keep you mindful of your inner formation so that the external doesn’t wreak havoc on your ability to lead from an undefended, differentiated place?
Thanks Adam. Well Done. What resonated with me was your reference to Dweck on fixed and growth mindset. How have you shifted from fixed to growth in our doctoral journey together?
Hi Adam, of the threshold concepts you’ve had, which are the most transformational in your embodied leadership practices (not just your understanding)?
Adam, I always appreciate reading your posts. Thanks for sharing this.
You talk about your role, which you state as not to “guard the stage but to invite others onto it.” I’m wondering, what immediate, practical step are you taking to share power, specifically with women leaders in constrained Christian spaces?
Hahahah! Adam, I love the title. I usually have to get AI to run my things three times before it’s in the proper word count. You write, “I am learning that mature leadership flows from a securely rooted self—a self-grounded in Christ, aware of its biases, healed from past wounds, undefended in posture, and calm amid anxiety.” Which of these are the easiest for you to cultivate and which is the hardest (and why…in under 75 words)?