Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix
In his book Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix: A Failure of Nerve, Edwin H Friedman presents unprecedented insight on leadership from his great wealth of experience working as a pulpit rabbi, organizational consultant, and family therapist. Friedman uncovers the failure of leadership affecting America’s civilization today, which he refers to as a “failure of nerve.” Friedman finds the failure of leadership in all institutions of the American society—in government and corporations, in the church, synagogue, hospital, library, school boards, and families. He contends, “For whenever a “family” is driven by anxiety, what will also always be present is a failure of nerve among its leaders” (p.2). Thus, for Friedman there is a connection between the wellbeing of the families and their leaders. Friedman believes that “there exists throughout American today a rampant sabotaging of leaders who try to stand tall amid the raging anxiety storms of our time”(2). This made me wonder why is the society sabotaging instead of encouraging and supporting the creative, imaginative and motivated leaders?
Another challenge of leadership in the land of the quick fix Friedman confronts is the society’s failure to choose leaders who might calm its anxiety. Instead they set “agendas and where adaptation is constantly toward weakness rather than strength, thus leveraging power to the recalcitrant.” (p.12). The question is: How do we help our society leverage power toward the energetic, the visionary, the imaginative, and the motivated?
Furthermore, Friedman attacks “a devaluation of the process of individuation so that leaders tend to rely more on expertise than on their own capacity to be decisive” (p.12). A tendency to rely on expertise is a common challenge among Christian churches as well. Leaders spend more time developing seminars or conferences on how to do missions but never clearly articulate practical ways to build relationship with the community they want to serve. We then become obsessed with data and techniques, which are nothing, but inhibit our capacity to be decisive when needed. Thus, Friedman confronts the society’s wide spread triumphing of “data over maturity, technique over stamina, and empathy over personal responsibility” (p.2). Instead, to overcome this kind of “toxic-emotional climate,” Friedman recommends we develop clear, decisive, well-defined leadership.
Another helpful insight from Friedman is how to deal with people with destructive personalities in families and institutions. He confronts the idea that toxic people can be regulated through “reasonableness, love, insight, role-modeling,..”; but instead Friedman suggests leaders take a stand and make right decisions even if it displeases those who lack self-regulation. I do not assume the task of challenging toxic members is easy; but leaders need to take necessary action for the health of the organization. We need to go beyond being fearful of displeasing others but do what is right with integrity.
For Friedman, leadership essentially is an emotional processes which takes into account and emphasizes the importance of the leader’s own self-differentiation (p.4). What does a well-differentiated leader mean? Friedman makes clear that a well-differentiated leader does not mean an autocrat who tells others what to do but “someone who has clarity about his or her own life goals, and, therefore, someone who is likely to become lost in the anxious emotional processes swirling about ”(p.14). As leaders we need to learn how to stay connected while still maintaining well defined stands as a non-anxious presence. As Friedman says, no one does this easily and the good thing is we can grow and improve our capacity to become a well-differentiated leader.
I appreciate Friedman’s challenging leaders to “focus first on their own integrity and on the nature of their own presence rather than through techniques for manipulating or motivating others”(p.13). Integrity is very critical in leadership. People would like to see us walk the talk. Likewise, presence is imperative in any relationship. From my own experience working with churches, I know how powerful personal relationship is more than other modes of communication.
About the Author
Telile Fikru Badecha
7 responses to “Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix”
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Telile, what an excellent overview of the book. Very well written and helpful in capturing the major ideas of the book. I found Friedman to be greatly challenging to me, as he reminded me how easy it is to be caught up in the emotional and systemic issues of people we work with, especially when our focus as Christians is to be deeply involved with others. It does challenge us to find out how do we keep “differentiated” – separated from the emotional whirlwinds–and yet still stay intimate and connected. I think for us as Christian leaders, this is a hard balancing act…but after reading Friedman, it is necessary if we hope to effect change and lift others up (rather than being dragged down into their dysfunction). There is a lot to learn here. Thanks for your further insights into this challenging book.
Hi John, I totally agree with everything you said. Like you, I am too challenged and reminded to find out how to keep differentiated. I realize it is not easy to balance being differentiated while stay connected. Again, as you said, we need to work on ourselves before helping others. Thanks for your comments!
Telile,
This is a wonderful post, full of wisdom and good insights. Thank you far sharing here. I, too, thoroughly enjoyed this book and learned a lot from it. I will go back and read through it carefully when I have more time.
You say, “As leaders we need to learn how to stay connected while still maintaining well defined stands as a non-anxious presence. As Friedman says, no one does this easily and the good thing is we can grow and improve our capacity to become a well-differentiated leader.” This gives me hope. I want to become this kind of leader. I am glad to hear that no one does this easily, since I am still in process on understanding and applying this type of healthy leadership in my own life. Sometimes, I have become caught up in negative and toxic conversation with others about leaders with whom I am working. But the reality is, what good does this do? It is really unproductive noise that doesn’t help anything at all. I guess the key to stopping this problem is found in this text and our part week’s text: We all need to become emotionally intelligent! And the good thing is that this is possible — if — we are open to the Holy Spirit’s work of changing us and reforming us. I want to be that kind of person, both as a leader and as a follower.
Bill, thank you for your comments. You are always honest and authentic! Like you, I am also still in process on understanding and applying this type of healthy leadership in my own life. Thanks again!
Telile!! 🙂 As I was reading your well-written post, I wondered about the leadership in Ethiopia? Have you experienced many differentiated leaders in Africa? Friedman said this book was geared toward American leaders, but I wonder what differences in emotional intelligence we would find between Ethiopian leaders versus American leaders?
Ashley, Great question! My culture is very communal. There are lots of expectations and forces for togetherness, which might put pressure on leaders to make decision. So self-differentiation is a hard process for anyone who grew up in this culture. I am still in the process of learning this type of leadership.
Telile,
“Leveraging power to the recalcitrant.” I have seen it so much and it’s so sad. Actually, I think it’s sad for both those being sabotaged by it and for those doing the sabotaging.
I think that we are called to be brave and courageous enough to not succumb to such barbarism — really…I think it is barbarism masquerading as community.
We are to be in the business of reconciling and redeeming such situations.
Friedman’s emphasis to focus on personal integrity is vital. It also may very well be why we’re not seeing more well-differntiated leaders these days. Integrity appears to be too limited of a commodity in a society that panders to the quick-fix. May God grace our efforts to set a different course.