By: Jonathan Lee on October 14, 2022
Tod Bolsinger, the author of Tempered Resilience, has been researching and teaching leadership over the years as he served as a senior pastor of San Clemente Presbyterian Church and as a professor at Fuller Seminary. Tod introduces his book with a question that he has been asking over the years: ‘Can I survive it?’ In…
By: Chad McSwain on October 14, 2022
I cannot think of a more timely and poignant book that speaks to my leadership context than Failure of Nerve.1 It is the connection between family systems and the organizational life that leads me to consider my own leadership choices and how to grow as a “well-differentiated leader.”2 In particular, I will reflect on Friedman’s observations…
By: Nicole Richardson on October 14, 2022
Whether it is Alexander Solzhenitsyn, N.S. Lyons, or Tod Bolsinger, the clarion call to the always burgeoning change leaders face is to PIVOT! PIVOT! It is not that the presence of change is a new dynamic in this world. In Tempered Resilience: How Leaders are Formed in the Crucible of Change, professor of leadership formation…
By: Jean de Dieu Ndahiriwe on October 14, 2022
Edwin H. Friedman’s A Failure of Nerve “Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix” shares insights that elicit lots of questions about leadership. Friedman focuses on the Leader’s presence and differentiation instead of relying on technique or knowledge. Even though he clarifies that he is not in support of autocracy, I wonder what he…
By: Denise Johnson on October 13, 2022
People who are transformational leaders willingly embrace a process of personal change which equips them to extract hope from a mountain of despair.[1] Tod Bolsinger’s Tempered Resilience: How Leaders Are Formed in the Crucible of Change [2] is a realistic look at the character-building process of becoming a leader who is transformational. His use of…
By: Jenny Steinbrenner Hale on October 13, 2022
I am slowly digesting the thoughts of Edwin Friedman as presented in his book, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix. Friedman’s main idea is that successful leaders operating in the current, highly anxious climate of the United States, must show up with a strong sense of self, an ability…
By: Alana Hayes on October 13, 2022
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…
By: Tonette Kellett on October 13, 2022
A Failure of Nerve challenged me in my thinking this week. I had to reconsider the way in which I thought about leadership roles. In considering the early explorers to the Americas, Christopher Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, and Giovanni Verrazano, Friedman reminds us that they did not have any of the advantages our astronaut explorers have…
By: Caleb Lu on October 13, 2022
In his book A Failure of Nerve, Edwin Friedman moves from traditional thought by addressing poor leadership as an internal problem rather than an external one.[1] He posits that this internal problem is one that blocks imaginative growth because it has created a society that is “more oriented toward safety than adventure.”[2] Friedman continues by…
By: Elmarie Parker on October 13, 2022
How is a leader formed? More specifically, how is the characteristic and practice of resilience formed in a leader? This is the question taken up by Tod Bolsinger in “Tempered Resilience: How Leaders are Formed in the Crucible of Change.”[1] In an introduction, eight chapters, epilogue, and notes, Bolsinger establishes his primary metaphor and then…
By: Troy Rappold on October 13, 2022
Todd Bolsinger’s 2020 book, Tempered Resilience: How Leaders are Formed in the Crucible of Change, falls in the category of Christian Spirituality and Leadership. The book defines tempering a leader as, “The process of reflection, relationships, and practices during the act of leading that form resilience to continue leading when the resistance is highest” (p.5).…
By: Michael O'Neill on October 13, 2022
To say “reading A Failure of Nerve by Edwin H. Friedman was inspiring” would be an understatement and borderline insulting to my psyche. I’ve read several books on leadership but none like this. Most self-help books serve as temporary motivation for me and commonly become short-lived with minimal action. I can usually manipulate my way…
By: David Beavis on October 13, 2022
If Dr. Murray Bowen’s theory of family systems highlights the need for the self-differentiation of the most mature, non-anxious member of a family system,[1] Dr. Edwin Friedman’s Failure of Nerve applies this theory to organizations while illustrating how it works in cellular biology. The essence of Friedman’s exhortation for leaders – in his words, “from…
By: Roy Gruber on October 13, 2022
As I reflect on my preparation for ministry as a pastor, I am thankful for what I received. I learned from many teachers who sought to instill a process for learning how to learn rather than just content retention. I learned sound principles of study, communication, and counseling. I gained an understanding of specific pastoral…
By: Andy Hale on October 13, 2022
Atychiphobia is the fear of failure. Heresyphobia is the fear of challenges. And tropophobia is the fear of change. Do leaders have the emotional intelligence to recognize their proclivity towards these phobias? If not, can they step back to measure if they avoid activities, opportunities, and people that might create an unsuccessful outcome or their…
By: Kristy Newport on October 12, 2022
My NPO is coming to life as I am reading A Failure of Nerve by Edwin H. Friedman. My NPO centers around the questions that Jesus asked and considering what we might learn from them. In becoming a well differentiated leader, considering the questions Jesus asks provides a pathway to walk in discovering differentiation. Friedman…
By: Henry Gwani on October 12, 2022
What time is it? Paul and others would argue that these are the last days, characterized by great change as seen in the decline in Christian convictions and practice, globalization, commodification, pandemics, bias, hybrid work and education, technological innovations. One popular word used to describe these days is disruptive! Yet it is not all bleak.…
By: Kayli Hillebrand on October 12, 2022
Endurance. To suffer patiently. While it is a theme throughout this weeks’ reading, it also happens to be the word I chose for this year towards the end of 2021. Being just over halfway through a doctoral program, having a 1.5-year-old that weeks’ prior was in the PICU for respiratory failure, being pregnant with a…
By: Eric Basye on October 12, 2022
Tod Bolsinger is a professor of Theology at Fuller Theological Seminary with a focus on congregational and leadership formation. Relying heavily on the teachings of Friedman and Heifetz, Tempered Resilience is a leadership book that primarily targets Christian leaders undergoing organizational change. He writes, They had become so focused on the aches and pains in…
By: Sara Taylor Lattimore on October 12, 2022
Currently in the United States it can appear that empathy and even forgiveness is in short supply. So often the news is full of stories about who’s fault it is that something happened or we are constantly looking for who is to blame so that we can make sense of it all. IF we only…
