{"id":29106,"date":"2022-10-14T10:45:58","date_gmt":"2022-10-14T17:45:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=29106"},"modified":"2022-10-14T10:45:58","modified_gmt":"2022-10-14T17:45:58","slug":"navigating-the-nerve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/navigating-the-nerve\/","title":{"rendered":"Navigating the Nerve"},"content":{"rendered":"

I cannot think of a more timely and poignant book that speaks to my leadership context than Failure of Nerve<\/i>.1\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>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 \u201cwell-differentiated leader.\u201d2 In particular, I will reflect on Friedman\u2019s observations of the contemporary American leadership problems of letting the anxious-members set the direction, devaluation of individuation, obsession with data, and misunderstanding of the relational nature of families and institutions as it relates to how I have navigated and experienced my congregations behavior in the midst of a challenging season.3<\/p>\n

Friedman\u2019s words ring true in an anxiety-driven, post-COVID world, desperate for leadership. This also resonates in my context of leading a denominational church experiencing the division over the (presenting) issue of human sexuality. Of course, the real issue is not societal norms or biblical interpretation, but deeper issues in the denomination.<\/p>\n

The church I serve found itself in the denominational squabble quite suddenly, when I discovered that a Sunday School class had been discussing the issue of human sexuality for weeks and approached me about our plans to take a vote as to whether to stay in the denomination. The response that followed is an example of letting the anxious members set the direction of the church. Our church leadership had decided not to pursue a vote months before, but now, due to our relational connection and criticism received, our church did take a vote. The fear was that if we did not take a vote those people who wanted a vote would leave. In the weeks that followed, all of these people left the church when it decided to stay in the denomination.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I see that my own leadership was often defined by devaluation of the individual and an obsession with data. My instinct was to have the difficult conversations and appeal to the previous decision the leadership of the church had made, yet after counsel and research, I felt that it did seem best to have an open forum to discuss the issue. While it was as civil as these kind of meetings can be, it only served to further entrench the positions that people already held. Many observed that all we needed was better arguments and more understanding, yet every conversation was met with a rebuttal citing an opposite appeal to data.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This experience has taught me to take seriously the relational nature of family-systems in churches. As Friedman observes, one of the problems is, \u201c[a] widespread misunderstanding about the relational nature of destructive processes in families and institutions that leads leaders to assume that toxic forces can be regulated through reasonableness, love, insight, role-modeling, inculcation of values, and striving for consensus.\u201d4 The church I serve has avoided difficult conversations for years (decades), further, tensions were avoided and only whispered about among trusted groups. Much like a family, we sacrificed proximity for genuine relational connection that can only be developed when we enter into challenging seasons with openness and honesty.<\/p>\n

Friedman has given a stark assessment of organizations and leadership that is detrimental to ignore. The reality of his observations accurately portray the family dynamics within the church I serve and how we have responded to a tension-filled season. My hope is that I as I reflect on this experience, that I will continue to grow as a differentiated, non-anxious leader that can provide the vision our church needs for the future.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \u00a0<\/span>Friedman, Edwin H, Margaret M Treadwell, and Edward W Beal. 2017. A Failure of Nerve : Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix<\/i>. New York: Church Publishing.<\/li>\n
  2. Ibid., 16.<\/li>\n
  3. Ibid., 13-14.<\/li>\n
  4. Ibid., 14.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I cannot think of a more timely and poignant book that speaks to my leadership context than Failure of Nerve.1\u00a0\u00a0It 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 \u201cwell-differentiated leader.\u201d2 In particular, I will reflect on Friedman\u2019s observations […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":163,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2347,236],"class_list":["post-29106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dlgp01","tag-friedman","cohort-dlgp01"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/163"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29106"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29107,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29106\/revisions\/29107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}