{"id":36709,"date":"2024-03-14T22:04:40","date_gmt":"2024-03-15T05:04:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=36709"},"modified":"2024-03-15T23:33:17","modified_gmt":"2024-03-16T06:33:17","slug":"free-within","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/free-within\/","title":{"rendered":"Free Within"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I was a child, I used to sing.\u00a0 My mother was my manager, booking gigs at local bars and theaters.\u00a0 I sang a range of musical arrangements from the blues (Billie Holiday\u2019s \u201cGood Morning Heartache) to pop (Donna Summer\u2019s \u201cOn the Radio\u201d – I was actually wheeled out on stage sitting on a giant radio.)\u00a0 But whether I was little orphan Annie belting out \u201cTomorrow\u201d or the Scarecrow singing for a brain, the only place I felt truly inspired to sing from my heart was in the tunnel round the corner from my house. When inside this tunnel, every sound echoed, reverberating all around my body. I could feel my voice inside out.\u00a0 Whatever note I sang, it came back to me in full form – so if I was off key, it would return with repeated clarity – \u201cYou missed the note.\u00a0 Try again.\u201d\u00a0 And I would.\u00a0 I\u2019d try and try again, unafraid of missing anything because there was no audience.\u00a0 It was just me and my voice.\u00a0 In \u201cLeading Out of Who You Are,\u201d Simon <\/span>Walker reminded me of the differences in how I sing on the front stage versus how I sing in the back, or in my case – in the tunnel.\u00a0 He made me long for the moment when I can balance the stages, for only in this balance can I sing my whole song.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I appreciated Walker combining art with science; a metaphor from theater arts with foundations from organizational theory and social psychology. The blend helped ground the theoretical with the practical. Yet, the grounding shook me a bit.\u00a0 Though it was encouraging to learn that the fires of\u00a0 life, my personal struggles and loss, has groomed me to become a leader, (1) Walker revealed that I still have some work to do to become a less defensive one.\u00a0 Trust issues, my need for control, and previous relationships with power have shaped who I am and how I lead.\u00a0 I often teeter on the fence between two egos, defining and adapting. (2)<\/span><\/p>\n

When I lead with a defining ego, I lead to win, pushing to prove I measure up. My inner critic is brutal and my inner child is always on edge, afraid of making a mistake.(3)\u00a0 All that matters is the front stage performance, which is exhausting and isolating because although I trust myself to know the words, my voice is not as strong as it could be. I may withhold the fullness of my song out of fear that I will miss a note, or worse, I won\u2019t even sing if success is not assured. More, I don\u2019t trust anyone else to sing with me, preventing me from harmonizing, which is contrary to what Walker identifies as the human goal. “The solution must lie, in fact, in locating relationships with the world, with others and perhaps, uniquely, with Another, in which we are both trusted and able to trust.” (4) Oddly, the adapting ego counters this sort of trust issue in the opposite extreme, over trusting others and under trusting myself. (5)\u00a0 I often avoid confrontation or conflict.\u00a0 If unavoidable, I become the peacemaker or make inappropriate jokes to break the tension. If that falls short, I seek to serve by becoming the fixer.\u00a0 I am getting better, however, by not hiding my feelings on the backstage where they are at risk of exploding.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I am still processing Walker\u2019s ideas related to power and control.\u00a0 If I had more time I would be curious to learn the keys to better balance the two, how to use my influence to better affect change, and how to break free of the <\/span>\u201cillusion of escape from the chaotic world we inhabit.” (6)\u00a0 <\/span>I expect these answers are found in Part III of the trilogy.\u00a0 Still, Part I offers an introduction<\/span>; the more I wrestle with my inner self, I reduce the risk of becoming a leader who seeks “to dominate, to conquer and oppress, to consume, to acquire,\u201d (7) and become more free within myself.\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0Walker encourages leaders to push through outside battles and inner wrestling, and become a model for others how to lead ourselves. <\/span><\/p>\n

This program is part of that development; each time I share on this blog I bring a bit of my backstage voice into the front.\u00a0 I\u2019ve noticed it\u2019s often off key when compared to my peers, but Walker would mark this as a sign towards my own liberty.\u00a0 \u201cFreedom comes when we start to allow people to see not only the glossy image but the mess as well.\u00a0 This also means that our back stage ceases to be a place of fear, containing all the mess that we avoid, and instead becomes available for fruitful exploration.\u201d (8) By sharing my hopes, thoughts and feelings up front, my backstage fears lose their power.\u00a0 The curtain between the stages becomes transparent and I can be more fully known.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

The world promotes the illusion that to expose vulnerability is to show weakness. This is contrary to Walker\u2019s approach. The more vulnerable I am reveals my truer self. This may be a key to Freidman’s differentiated leader. (9) The more true I am to myself, the less anxious I am about what I\u2019m hiding backstage.\u00a0 Even if I fail, Jesus will not judge me for missing the note. I just need to keep singing.<\/span><\/p>\n

(1) \u00a0Simon Walker.\u00a0Leading Out of Who You Are: Discovering the Secret of Undefended Leadership (\u00a0<\/i>Carlisle: Piquant, 2007) 7-9<\/p>\n

(2) Ibid., 71-86<\/p>\n

(3) Ibid., 71-77<\/p>\n

(4) Ibid., 98<\/p>\n

(5) Ibid., 79-86<\/p>\n

(6) Ibid., 45<\/p>\n

(7) Ibid., 9<\/p>\n

(8) Ibid., 33<\/p>\n

(9) Edwin H. Friedman. A Failure of Nerve<\/i>\u00a0(New York: Church Publishing, 2017)<\/p>\n

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

When I was a child, I used to sing.\u00a0 My mother was my manager, booking gigs at local bars and theaters.\u00a0 I sang a range of musical arrangements from the blues (Billie Holiday\u2019s \u201cGood Morning Heartache) to pop (Donna Summer\u2019s \u201cOn the Radio\u201d – I was actually wheeled out on stage sitting on a giant […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":192,"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":[571,1],"tags":[3096,3085,2967],"class_list":["post-36709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biography-drama-history","category-uncategorized","tag-dlgp03-walker","tag-dlgp03-walker-undefendedleader","tag-dlgp03","cohort-dlgp03"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36709","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\/192"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36709"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36719,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36709\/revisions\/36719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}