{"id":31318,"date":"2023-02-23T23:39:51","date_gmt":"2023-02-24T07:39:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=31318"},"modified":"2023-02-23T23:51:05","modified_gmt":"2023-02-24T07:51:05","slug":"lets-go-surfing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/lets-go-surfing\/","title":{"rendered":"Let’s go surfing!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m\u00a0going\u00a0to start this post with a confession.<\/strong><\/p>\n

As I was reading A Failure of Nerve, Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix<\/em> [1]<\/a>by Edwin H. Friedman, I thought about the people at church who approach me after a sermon and ask, \u201chave you been reading my mail?\u201d<\/p>\n

Most often I have no clue what may be going on in their life that made them ask that. But what it usually means is that the Holy Spirit was encouraging or convicting them about something.<\/p>\n

Page after page, Friedman was reading my mail, in both encouraging and convicting ways. And one place I was convicted was about being a non-anxious presence.<\/p>\n

My family of origin is awesome, but the family system was full of anxiety, over-functioning, peace-mongering, and passive aggressive tendencies. While I observed that, and worked to intentionally break away from those traps, I didn\u2019t totally succeed.<\/p>\n

In other words, I\u2019m not always what you\u2019d consider a non-anxious presence.<\/p>\n

That hasn\u2019t served me well as a pastor. To be clear, my anxiety isn\u2019t chronic, but it does show up in unexpected and unwelcome moments. When there is sabotage, or when I\u2019m fighting recurring depression, or sometimes when I\u2019m leading through critical situations, anxiety can get the best of me.<\/p>\n

A year ago, in the middle of a high-stake crisis at the church, I was talking to my therapist, and he suggested that I read a book called How Your 21st<\/sup>-Century Church Family Works<\/em> by Peter Steinke[2]<\/a>. I bought it, got 5 pages into it, and threw it on my shelf. I didn\u2019t have time right then for a dry book about \u201ccongregations as emotional systems\u201d. But after reading A Failure of Nerve<\/em>, and then noticing the forward was written by Steinke, I revisited it. It turns out that book is a sort of abridged reworking of Friedman’s book \u201cGeneration to Generation\u201d[3]<\/strong><\/a><\/em> that he mentions in Failure of Nerve.<\/p>\n

I should have read the book my therapist recommended, because Failure of Nerve<\/em> now joins The<\/em> Ruthless Elimination of Hurry[4]<\/strong><\/a> <\/em>by John Mark Comer as essential books I\u2019ve read in the last season that could have saved me a lot of stress had I read them earlier. Both books\u2014in radically different ways\u2014underscore the importance of healthy, non-anxious, differentiated leaders who, as Friedman contends, are vital to the health of organizational and family systems. In fact, he argues that leadership is more about having the nerve to stand against anxiety (a leader\u2019s own anxiety, as well as others\u2019 anxiety) than having the right tools, or techniques, or data, or skills.<\/p>\n

So, as person who for 35 years has been actively learning about\u2014and living into\u2014the tools, techniques, and skills of leadership, what am I supposed to do with that revelation? What am I doing getting a doctorate in leadership if I can be a great leader by simply having a non-anxious presence?<\/p>\n

Thankfully it\u2019s not an either\/or, but a both\/and. It\u2019s like surfing, or golfing, both of which I am not very good at. In both cases, before I started the sport I read everything I could that would help me learn, and I had experts who worked with me on the mechanics.<\/p>\n

But in the end, all the information and coaching didn\u2019t help me, because I couldn\u2019t relax.<\/p>\n

I was so focused on \u2018getting it right\u2019 \u00a0that my mind wouldn’t let my body lean into the art of letting go and enjoying the moment by letting the wave, or the motion, take me where I needed to go.<\/p>\n

So, in pursuing something that was supposed to be fun, I was on the “unending treadmill of \u00a0trying harder ” (39) and instead of being present to the sport and enjoying the moment, I was all up in my head.<\/p>\n

It seems that\u2019s one of the things Friedman is saying about leadership: Understanding the tricks and tools and techniques is helpful and important, but being able to relax and enjoy the journey not only makes it more fun, but more effective. This is something I need to work on in my leadership (and on my surfboard).<\/p>\n

Questions I\u2019m reflecting on:<\/em> <\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. How can I become more of a non-anxious presence?<\/li>\n
  2. How can I better navigate the cost of leadership Friedman talks about, whether it\u2019s sabotage, the pain of isolation, loneliness, criticism, loss of friends, etc.?<\/li>\n
  3. How does thinking about leadership as emotional process impact my NPO of engaging rising generations of leaders for the church?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

     <\/p>\n

    [1]<\/a> Edwin H. Friedman. A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix. New York: Church Publishing, 2017<\/p>\n

    [2]<\/a> Peter L Steinke. How Your 21st<\/sup> Century Church Family Works<\/em>. London: Roman and Littlefield Publishing, 2021.<\/p>\n

    [3]<\/a> Edwin H. Friedman. Generation to Generation<\/em>. New York: The Guilford Press, 1985<\/p>\n

    [4]<\/a> John Mark Comer. The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry<\/em>. Waterbrook, 2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I’m\u00a0going\u00a0to start this post with a confession. As I was reading A Failure of Nerve, Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix [1]by Edwin H. Friedman, I thought about the people at church who approach me after a sermon and ask, \u201chave you been reading my mail?\u201d Most often I have no clue what […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":169,"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":[2310],"tags":[2489,236],"class_list":["post-31318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-doctor-of-leadership-3","tag-dlgp02","tag-friedman","cohort-dlgp02"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31318","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\/169"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31318"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31318\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31328,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31318\/revisions\/31328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}