Edwin Friedman, Family Systems theory, and leadership

On self-differentiation: This blog post may save your church, your career, and your marriage

A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix. Edwin Friedman. Seabury Books, 2007.

http://lutheranconfessions.blogspot.com/2016/01/on-self-differentiation-this-blog-post.html

 

This article is a treasure trove of Friedman's wisdom. I need to read this book, which is
an application of family systems theory to leadership practices.

Instead, leaders who wish to lead well in an anxious age will focus "on their own integrity and on the nature of their own presence rather than techniques for manipulating or motivating others" (13). This is the lodestone to which any reader of Friedman should return. Whenever we are prone to interpret his work as a set of techniques, or assume we totally and finally "get" what he is saying, we are to be reminded that what his work is really about is an ongoing invitation and challenge to focus on our own presence as a leader within emotional systems.>