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Meaning-making or map-making is my over arching understanding of this doctorate journey. What does my map of leadership look like and how do I make meaning of it?\u00a0 I sometimes wish I could physically open that popup relief map and walk into it to get a street level perspective. This is one of those times.<\/p>\n
I have been interviewing for a new call with a church in North Carolina. Over the course of 3 interviews, I have fielded questions about my leadership and conflict management skills. \u00a0My responses accessed the map that has A Failure of Nerve<\/em> popups all over it.\u00a0 The book by Edwin Friedman presents the challenges leaders face in the presence of an emotional regressed, anxious system. His argument \u201cthat healthy leadership requires one to have a strong sense of self in order to engage a chronically anxious organization that clings to security, easy pain, and the \u201cneed\u201d of the quick fix to problems\u201d[1]<\/a> is grounded in his research and experience. Friedman\u2019s language gave voice to my answers that included words like, self-differentiation, low threshold of pain, anxious system, imaginative gridlock, courageous pioneering, and playfulness.<\/p>\n Pondering my leadership identity map as I consider a move to a new ministry context, I keep returning to Friedman\u2019s assertion that the lack of playfulness within a system reveals anxiety and dysfunction.[2]<\/a> After reading The Molecule of More<\/em> my meaning-making of playfulness takes on new dimension.\u00a0 I have begun wondering about the brain\u2019s chemical and neurological participation in a leader\u2019s self-differentiation process. How does dopamine invite playfulness and do the brains of participants in an anxious system have capacity to release dopamine in healthy balance with the H&N\u2019s?<\/p>\n It seems to me that one of the most important hurdles for the church to leap over is to embrace playfulness, not for playfulness\u2019 sake, but for the pioneering energy to rebound.\u00a0 Friedman notes that playfulness is important for engaging in intimacy as well as self-differentiation.[3]<\/a> When a system is functioning with that spirit of openness, optimism and adventure can pave the endeavors ahead. He states that a lack of playfulness curbs one\u2019s capacity to forgive or offer apology,[4]<\/a> both of which are parament for the life force of a worshipping community.<\/p>\n Out of my curiosity for understanding the benefit of dopamine on playfulness and playfulness on health of individuals and thus communities I begin to dig into some research.\u00a0 What I found suggests that indeed there is a connection between the release of dopamine and inhibition to play.[5]<\/sup><\/a> There is also research that reveals how important playfulness in childhood and adolescence is to shape an adult who is \u201cbetter able to navigate an ever-changing social, emotional, and cognitive landscape.\u201d[6]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 But playfulness is not only beneficial to the shaping of a child into adulthood.\u00a0 Discoveries of the importance of continued engagement in playfulness encourages \u201cphysical and mental resilience; social intelligence; cognitive flexibility and intellect.\u00a0 We conclude that the incorporation of play within higher education by developing \u2018Playful Universities\u2019 could counteract the fear of failing, avoidance of risk and other negative aspects of performativity and goal-oriented behaviour.\u201d[7]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n So this begs these questions; how do I not only lead with playfulness but engender a space where the system is cognizant of the importance of play in the faith community? How do create space to invite the release of healthy dopamine levels to nurture the desire for play? How do I hold in tension the value of play with the cost of letting go of some certainty that faith our biases define?<\/p>\n Just when I think my leadership popup map makes sense, we read another book that wreaks havoc on it as though Joey Tribiani trapsed through it.\u00a0 That\u2019s alright; I am starting to enjoy the creative process of making a new map with new popups…again…and again…and again.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [1]<\/a> Richardson, Nicole. Blog No Good Deed Goes Unpunished<\/em>. October 2021.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> Friedman, Edwin H., and Peter Steinke. 2017. A Failure of Nerve, Revised Edition: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix<\/em>. 10th Anniversary edition. New York: Church Publishing. Page 71.<\/p>\n [3]<\/a> Ibid. Page 70.<\/p>\n [4]<\/a> Ibid. Page71.<\/p>\n [5]<\/a> https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S1878929311000673#bib0485<\/p>\n [6]<\/a> https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC5646690\/<\/p>\n