{"id":42750,"date":"2025-12-04T19:31:52","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T03:31:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=42750"},"modified":"2025-12-04T19:34:49","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T03:34:49","slug":"final-post-healthy-leadership-through-the-lens-of-walker-and-friedman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/final-post-healthy-leadership-through-the-lens-of-walker-and-friedman\/","title":{"rendered":"Final Post: Healthy Leadership through the Lens of Walker and Friedman"},"content":{"rendered":"

Friedman and Walker touch the anxiety I carry from navigating multi-layered roles pastor, organizer, academic, district leader, community advocate. Their writings press me to acknowledge that leadership rooted in reactive energy becomes fragmented and spiritually thin. Once again, as with power, it is healthy for a leader to recognize and acknowledge their exertion of control and make it explicit<\/em> [1]. The deeper invitation for me is towards cultivating interior spaciousness what Walker would defines as anl undefended presence so that leadership flows out of grounding rather than grinding.<\/p>\n

When conversations about productivity and performance are held, the word grind<\/i> has risen to the surface as a defining ingredient. This adjective describes the relentless, demanding pace many have come to accept as normal. Grind not only reflects our culture but also forms it. From a growth perspective, Friedman has overall challenged my temptation toward overfunctioning, especially when responsibility rises high and heavy.\u00a0What is required is a fundamental reorientation of our thinking processes, one that allows leaders to evaluate information in the context of emotional variables.<\/em> [2]\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

My \u201cFront Stage\u201d self forces me to consider and confront the ways image management drains the spiritual authority Walker calls us to walk in. Coupled together, the way they framed vulnerability, authenticity, and the courage to be fully present as a new pattern for living and leading has given me a welcome challenge. What this touches at the core is my interior struggle I and many face in as inward desire to be perceived as strong. Walker complements this by showing how my instinctive defensiveness, which manifests in myriad ways such as performing competence, projecting control, and masking fatigue, creates distance rather than trust. Friedman argues for a valuing of self. It is only when self is valued that leaders can be less at the mercy of the data\/technique deluge, no less its addictive properties<\/em> [3]<\/p>\n

Recently, I faced criticism for a strategic decision related to a ministry restructuring effort. There was miscommunication among a few that led to assumptions about my true leadership intentions. The pushback was pretty intense, emotionally charged, and rooted in fear and a perceived loss of power by some. My initial instinct was to over-explain and defend the decision. I was poised to enter the emotional fray within the room and try to win people over. Reflecting on past experience, I have seen how that response temporarily calms the room but weakens my leadership clarity and conviction. As I felt myself drift towards performance mode in tightening up and bracing for impact, my spirit shifted and released the need for extra explanation and self-protection. I moved into an assertive non anxious presence moving from feeling like being accused to leading with my vulnerability that essentially led to a team victory..This was a lesson from Friedman\u2019s page, it shows me now that the real invitation was differentiation, not retreat. Differentiation becomes less about self-protection and more about being authentically anchored in who I am called to be.<\/p>\n

Friedman says of differentiation:<\/p>\n

Differentiation is the capacity to take a stand in an intense emotional system<\/p>\n

Differentiation is saying I, when others are demanding we<\/p>\n

Differentiation is containing one’s reactivity to the reactivity of others, which includes the ability to avoid being polarized<\/p>\n

Differentiation is maintaining a non-anxious presence in the face of anxious others<\/p>\n

As I reflect on my mode of operation, I can recognize that over time, I am now better guided in moments of emotional reactivity. Friedman\u2019s perspective has helped me lead differently with greater intentionality. Leading with clarity and grounded presence and the refusal to be absorbed by the anxiety of others has been a win. A colleague of mine who passed during COVID-19 authored a book, \u201cYou Can Go Crazy- But Don\u2019t Expect Me To Go With You. This is a new shift as from Walker\u2019s perspective.\u00a0 <\/span>I am learning to lead more from the \u201cback stage,\u201d drawing from my core identity rather than front-stage performance. This shift also allows me to better respond to criticism with clearer boundaries and walk into a new reality of emotional presence as opposed to collapsing into a commitment not to collapse into the anxiety trap. People only become undefended when they feel safe<\/em>. [4]. Utilizing this integrated posture strengthens both my leadership resilience and the relational trust of those I serve.<\/p>\n

A threshold concept was formed in Simon Walker\u2019s repeated thought that undefended leadership grows out of a freedom of interior was pretty big for me. I knew what it meant to be emotionally healthy after reading and participating in Pete Scazzero\u2019s Emotionally Healthy Leadership conference several years ago. Unloosening the tight connection between worth and performance, and also leadership and emotional armor, has helped me enhance how I lead, while also allowing me to open the door and share with others just how beneficial your leadership and life can become by shifting our lenses.\u00a0Admittedly, much of what I learned from both Friedman and Walker did not take shape overnight, but over time. Simon Walker emphasizes this, stating that living out an undefended life as a leader by and large involves living in a place that feels provisional and perhaps uncomfortable.<\/em> [5] I know find myself less guarded, less worried, and less preoccupied about others perception,\u00a0 <\/span>this interior freedom has changed how I show up as a leader and how lighter the burden of leadership has become. I now have a new definition of courageous leadership, which has helped not only to reshape me and how I live, but also has enabled me to invite others into healthier patterns of leadership alongside me.<\/p>\n

[1] Walker, Simon. Leading Out of Who You Are: Discovering the Secret of Undefended Leadership, (Piquant Publishing, 2007), 49.<\/p>\n

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

[3] Friedman, 105.<\/p>\n

[4] Walker, 185.<\/p>\n

[5] Walker, 37.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Friedman and Walker touch the anxiety I carry from navigating multi-layered roles pastor, organizer, academic, district leader, community advocate. Their writings press me to acknowledge that leadership rooted in reactive energy becomes fragmented and spiritually thin. Once again, as with power, it is healthy for a leader to recognize and acknowledge their exertion of control […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":202,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","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":[3512],"class_list":["post-42750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dlgp03-friedman-walker","cohort-dlgp03"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42750","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\/202"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42750"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42750\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42756,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42750\/revisions\/42756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}