Leadership as a System: When System Readiness Becomes System Maturity
Friedman observed leadership of all levels within family, church, politics, and church. He is known for integrating therapy, organizational leadership and ministry. He also identified that problems begin in leadership when individuals do not stand firm in their beliefs. Not necessarily what you would initially identify of having lack of knowledge, skill, or technique. The ability to be able to stand firm in others reactivity is a presence and internal authority that is developed.
Friedman believed that Leadership depends on emotional processing. Emotional Process is defined by, “A process whereby emotional disturbances are absorbed and decline to the extent that other experiences and behavior can proceed without disruption.” (1) Why is this important to define? It’s important to define how we learn to process emotions and handle uncomfortable feelings and situations. If you allow it, you can use it to be more resilient. Much like emotional processing can be, leadership for the most part is a learned behavior… not innate. The Univeristy of Western Alabama psychology department identified 3 components of emotional processing:
1) Subjective Experience- a stimulus…where all emotions can begin.
2) Physiological Response- fight or flight reactions…Typically shown through facial expression first.
3) Behavioral or Expressive Response- the expression of the emotion.
Another component to leadership according to Friedman was a well differentiated leader. Coincidentally this also involves emotional processing. What is the leaders initial reactivity and instinct response (physiological). How do they handle discomfort towards challenges and change? Do they stand firm in their beliefs at the risk of upsetting others? Their Leadership presence in their emotion is key. “A leader must separate his or her own emotional being from that of his or her followers while still remaining connected.” (3) You can have read all of the leadership books in the world… but Friedman suggests that the ability to focus on being present differentiates a leader more than simply knowledge ever could. An effective leader is able to separate himself by standing out of the pack. They perceive changes and give a voice of an inner authority that telling a different story than anyone else. If you are doing the same thing that everyone else is doing, you are not leading. You have an energy that allows people to respond to. In order for anyone to hear your message they have to be moving in a direction towards you. You cannot force or coerced individuals because they will not hear you or be respective. You lead by example by being grounded, strong, confident, stable, and present. You lead by standing firm in your beliefs. You focus on your own growth and let others focus on themselves. A differentiated leader looks for long term change, and not a short term fix. They have an attitude that encourages responsibility. They are fed up with stagnancy, and love the challenge of difficult circumstances. A differentiated leader matures the system.
This brings me to my aha moment of reading different parts of Friedman. What if we looked at leadership as a system? What if we compare (Leadership) system readiness vs. (Leadership) system maturity? “Many systems suffer from major problems with implementation, integration, performance and other lifecycle problems and unexpected and unacceptable behaviour often arises when they are introduced into the real world, yet the systems were believed to be “ready” for use.”(4) In the real world of rolling out a system it is deemed ready far before it actually has all of the bugs worked out to be deemed a mature system. It faces extreme problems with unexpected behaviors that require discomfort as the programers decide how to react to enhance the system to maturity.
You are all leaders that are “ready”… its up to you on how you differentiate yourself as a leader to become “mature”.
(1)http://emotionalprocessing.org/definitions/
(2)https://online.uwa.edu/news/emotional-psychology/
(3)Friedman, Edwin H., Margaret M. Treadwell, and Edward W. Beal. “Pg. 40.” Essay. In A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix. New York: Church Publishing, 2017.
(4) https://dspace.lib.cranfield.ac.uk/handle/1826/3412b
About the Author
Alana Hayes
Alana is a mother to four beautiful children and wife to a farmer in Texas. She is an avid world traveler with a heart for both the world and education. She is the president of the nonprofit Against the Grain Texas where they focus on providing education to children overseas and at risk adults in the states. To date the nonprofit has given almost $100,000 to individuals around the world. In her free time she loves spending meaningful time with people and reading to further her personal education.6 responses to “Leadership as a System: When System Readiness Becomes System Maturity”
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Alana,
I really enjoyed your Aha moment. Can you expound a little more about how to become a ‘mature’ leader? Or explain a little more about “(Leadership) system maturity”? I am intrigued.
For sure! When I was reading through his book and researching the author I kept thinking about how the correlation of there are a lot of people that are “ready” to lead…. but it does not mean that they are a mature leader. I personally feel ready to lead my small town in mission based growth focusing on an at risk population. However I am by no means a mature leader. I lack time, knowledge, reactivity, presence and so much more.
When I think of a mature leader I think of Desmond Tutu. He was wise beyond earthly understanding almost! Of course he was human and made mistakes… But I think there are a lot of leaders like him in the world that are very mature leaders in multiple aspects that we can learn from.
I hope that makes sense!
Hi Alana,
I like your highlight that refers to our ability to stand firm in the midst of reactivity. There seems to be so much reactivity in our world today. I know for me, it can sometimes be difficult to stand firm with a calm presence and a sure grasp on my thoughts and feelings. What are the things that help you stand firm these days in our current context?
Thanks so much for your thoughts!
If I am being honest to myself – I lack in this skill and still need to grow! That was apparent to me when reading different parts of this book!!! How can we grow in this?
When I think of someone that did this in my life it was my papa. When you mentioned something to him he was quiet… listened intently but hardly ever gave an immediate response.
One reason I think our world is so reactive is in general the world thrives on quick fixes. I do think the author got that right.
The older generation in my life is not fast to do anything! They sit, think, pray, then react. What is it that makes them do this? Values? Concept of time? Maturity?
Alana, I love your description of how your Papa responded to you and your thoughts on how the older generation shows up in our world today. I’m inspired to act more slowly, prayerfully, and thoughtfully. Thanks for sharing this.
Alana,
I love to see you writing about the way you are processing and understanding the concepts that Friedman discusses. The theory of these concepts makes so much sense to me, yet I struggle to implement them in my leadership context. I’m with you in that I have aha moments and think “if only we could do this, things would be better” How have you seen in the work you are doing in your non profit that your present leadership has made a difference in the direction of where you are heading as an organization? (PS I’m asking because I think you are a great leader!)