In my community there is an inn that creates a hospitable space for people to transition from precarious living situations to healthy structures of stability. This week I had the opportunity to meet with the inn keeper to hear his journey over the last few months of needing to release his grip on the inn to make way for the future, although uncertain. His sense was that the inn needed community partnership through leadership and finances by November 30 or the inn would need to close.<\/p>\n
The tension between the need to release the inn and the ever-nearing deadline kept bringing to mind Edwin Friedman\u2019s book, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix<\/em>. What I was learning from the minister and inn keeper was that he had served the inn for the last four years and it had been sacrificial and good work. But the continuation of the work is unsustainable at present. The minister had to care for himself as he had not taken a paycheck from the inn and had been pastoring a local parish throughout his time as the inn\u2019s keeper.<\/p>\n When asked to comment on partnering with the inn, I noted the courage it took for the minister to live within the tension, momentarily making the pain of the matter much worse because of the imposed deadline. But this seems to be a healthy place as the leader is also beginning to enter a space where he will not be the one to force change but will allow others to move into proximity, allowing for a reformation of the system by which the inn is operating to emerge. If the partnerships do not come, the inn will close and he will move on with his parish. Although this is not what anyone wants, the leader is willing to let go with the recognition of his own need for boundaries and wholeness.<\/p>\n The inn-keeper is continuing to grow in learning to be self-differentiated. Letting go of responsibility for things he cannot control while being present to the situation without herding, blaming or being reactive. This non-anxious presence in a time when the organization is in crisis may prove to be exactly the right posture for the inn to continue.<\/p>\n A non-anxious presence is the road less traveled. As Friedman explains, a non-anxious or well-differentiated person \u201chas clarity about his or her own life goals, and, therefore, someone who is less likely to become lost in the anxious emotional processes swirling about\u2026No one does this easily, and most leaders, I have learned, can improve their capacity.\u201d[1]<\/a><\/p>\n In Friedman\u2019s text, he extensively discusses the causes paralyzing leaders today, including myths of the need for expertise, empathy, selflessness. \u00a0Utilizing family systems theory to demonstrate the universal effects of fused and well differentiated relationships, Friedman argues family systems are at play in institutions. This theory takes the focus off of a person and their personality, gender, race or other demographic factors and relates to a network and the positioning and relative health within the network. Thus, when a leader as part of the network begins to move toward health, regardless of age or culture, they will agitate the system.<\/p>\n \u201cIf the leader did not have to be in direct contact with every member in order to influence them, then it should follow that if a leader could learn to be a well-differentiated presence, by the very nature of his or her being he or she could promote differentiation and support creative imagination throughout the system. This would be the case not by focusing on techniques for moving others, but by focusing on the nature of his or her own being and presence.\u201d[2]<\/a><\/p>\n It seems that healthy leadership in regard to self-care is an obvious aspect of keeping oneself healthy. But Friedman does not write about eating well, sleeping and getting exercise to make a holistic self. Indeed, it\u2019s the life of the mind and emotions, \u201cone\u2019s own being and presence\u201d that are so challenging and left frayed in many leaders and their organizations.<\/p>\n Considering pastors and churches: In what ways are pastors negatively affecting their congregations by not focusing on their own being and presence? When they do, and the system begins to reveal likely sabotage, will they stay the course? Will they even know that they are on course? Who is their community to help them discern and hear the Spirit while in the thick of the turmoil? These questions kept plaguing me while reading Friedman, returning my thoughts to the earlier conversation of the inn keeper.<\/p>\n It also reminded me of the need for pastors to have space to be present with God and others to recognize their own need for integrity and self-differentiation. To this end, the Lilly endowment recently put several million dollars toward helping ministers. In October 78 organizations received up to one million dollars each to help pastors in the US thrive.[3]<\/a> This money is not for the congregations but for pastors to be healthy and whole in their calling to minister to communities.<\/p>\n As part of the Portland Seminary team who was received the initial Thriving grant from Lilly a year ago, I have the opportunity to invite pastors into a cohort to thrive with their colleagues.[4]<\/a> After working with our first group for only six months, I am overwhelmed by the enrichment that has come in their minimal time together. These leaders get to be together with no strings, no expectations of achievement, no bosses and no continuing education on the line. The focus is presence. The time is rich. The impact on one another is revelatory. The potential for transformation of people and systems of the church is beyond what we know.<\/p>\n [1]<\/a> Friedman, 14.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> Friedman, 18<\/p>\n