Summary: Edwin Friedman’s “A Failure of Nerve” in 500 Words

By Bob Thune June 6, 2016

One of the most insightful leadership books I’ve read in the past few years is Edwin
Friedman’s book A Failure of Nerve. Recently I created a short summary of the book’s
insights to share with some emerging leaders in Coram Deo.

A Failure of Nerve by Edwin Friedman (New York: Church Publishing, 2007)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Edwin Friedman (d. 1996) served for 20 years as a pulpit rabbi and for 25 years as an
organizational consultant & family therapist in the Washington DC area. He also served
in the Lyndon Johnson administration. His unique experience allowed him to observe
leadership – and its problems – in the family, the church, and the political sphere.

CORE THESIS

The real problem of leadership is a failure of nerve. Leaders fail not because they lack
information, skill, or technique, but because they lack the nerve and presence to stand
firm in the midst of other people’s emotional anxiety and reactivity.

KEY CONCEPT: EMOTIONAL PROCESS

Friedman’s understanding of leadership hinges on the idea of emotional process. Every

family and every institution has an implicit emotional/relational environment, and a way
of operating within that environment. Good leadership has less to do with skill, data,
technique, or knowledge, and more to do with a leader’s ability to discern and navigate
the emotional and relational climate of a family or organization.

FOCUS: THE LEADER’S PRESENCE

The key variable in leadership is a leader’s presence. Rather than focusing on technique
or know-how, we need to focus on the leader’s own presence and being. Throughout his
work Friedman speaks of the importance of a “well-differentiated leader.” Here’s what he
means:

 Unhealthy emotional systems are marked by reactivity. A well-differentiated

leader doesn’t react to other people’s reactions; he or she is a calm, steady
presence.
 Unhealthy emotional systems are marked by a herding instinct. A well-
differentiated leader has a strong sense of self and can effectively separate while
remaining connected.
  Unhealthy emotional systems are marked by blame displacement. A well-
differentiated leader takes responsibility for himself and leads others to do the
same.
 Unhealthy emotional systems are marked by a quick-fix mentality; relief from
pain is more important than lasting change. A well-differentiated leader realizes
that true long-term change requires discomfort, and he or she is willing to lead
others through discomfort toward change.
 Unhealthy emotional systems are marked by poorly defined leadership. A well-
differentiated leader takes decisive stands at the risk of displeasing others.

These characteristics of unhealthy emotional systems are easily seen in families; but
Friedman suggests that this sort of chronic anxiety is a defining characteristic of our
whole culture. “The climate of contemporary America has become so chronically anxious
that our society has gone into an emotional regression that is toxic to well-defined
leadership… This kind of emotional climate can only be dissipated by clear, decisive,
well-defined leadership.”

Friedman asserts that a leader’s job is to be “the strength in the system.” Families,
groups, and institutions have “emotional fields” (like magnetic fields or gravitational
fields). The leader’s self-differentiation, or lack thereof, has an effect on the emotional
field. Leaders will either take on the chronic anxiety of the system, or they will transform
that anxiety by their calm, steady, well-defined presence.

Here are some reflection questions to help apply Friedman’s insights:

1. Describe the emotional climate of a) your family of origin; b) your workplace; c)

your gospel community.

2. In what ways are you a well-differentiated leader? In what ways are you NOT a
well-differentiated leader?

3. If you saw leadership as primarily about your presence, not about skill or
technique or know-how – what would change?

4. If leadership is primarily about presence, how does that change the sort of growth
or transformation you seek as a leader?

5. How would a gospel perspective (idolatry, identity, worship, repentance-and-

faith) add even deeper nuance to Friedman’s insights?
 Movement Leadership: Avoiding the Failure of Nerve

By Jay Lorenzen On August 28, 2009

I’ve spent the last two weeks unpacking some of the work of Edwin Friedman, whose
book, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix, has significantly
challenged my thinking about leadership. Below is a brief outline of Friedman’s approach
to leadership, as I understand it.

(I’ve added several links at the end of this post, one to my summary notes and another to
a paper by Brian Virtue. If you’d like more info, you might want to read these extended
discussions.)

As you read thru the following points, have in mind some movement leaders in the past
(Jesus, Paul the Apostle, William Wilberforce, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King,
Jr., Bill Bright, others?). Do they practice what Friedman calls “well-differentiated
leadership?”

How then do leaders of movements avoid a failure of nerve? They

1. Think “systematically” (or embrace a systems approach.)

To understand our role as leaders, Friedman argues that the leader must think
systemically, embracing the interconnectedness of the whole network of relationships in
an organization (institution/movement/church, etc.) In other words, the functioning of
any member, including the leader, plays a significant role in the functioning of the other
members of the organization.

Thus, when viewed through a systems lens, leadership is a functioning position that is
present in all relational systems. From this perspective, how that position is filled – – how
the “leader” is present in the system – – is the crucial issue. A system will either benefit
or suffer from the way the leader is present because the functioning of the leader (or
leaders) affects the emotional processes inherent in all relational systems .

2. Acknowledge the Role of Emotional Processes within the System

Because an organization is a living, interrelated system, leaders and followers are

intimately connected through their emotional processes or the interaction of their
thoughts, feelings, emotions, fantasies, and associations, their past connections
individually and together – with positive or negative effects on the health of the
organization.

Freidman’s theory of leadership thus relies heavily on the cumulative effect of these
emotional processes–how emotionally mature people are, their emotional reaction to
anxiety and one another, and how individuals/groups manage or self-regulated their
emotions.
3. Realize that Emotional Processes Tend Toward Imaginative Gridlock

Friedman argues that emotional systems often become “imaginatively gridlock”–

conceptually stuck. To Friedman, imaginatively gridlocked systems will not change on
their own by getting new or more learning. “There must be a shift in the emotional
processes of that institution. Imagination and indeed even curiosity are at root emotional,
not cognitive, phenomena. In order to imagine the unimaginable, people must be able to
separate themselves from surrounding emotional processes before they can even begin to
see (or hear) things differently.”

Unfortunately, most organizational systems tend toward “homeostasis”–desiring stability

and balance rather than adventurous exploration.

4. Realize that Emotional Processes Tend Toward Chronic Anxiety

Friedman argues that relationship systems can tend toward chronic, systemic anxiety—in
families, institutions, and society— and that anxiety not only hinders the development of
the system but also operates at the same time to derail leadership. The presence of
chronic anxiety affects all systemic relationships, and all of life itself. Chronic anxiety is
not what we think of as being overtly “anxious” about something. It is the “emotional and
physical reactivity of all life” generated by individual and group reactions to disturbances
in the balance of a relationship system.

As I mentioned in my previous post on the Audacity of Leadership, Friedman describes

five elements of chronic anxiety as: reactivity, herding, blame displacement, a quick-fix
mentality, and lacking in well-differentiated leaders. One can recognize “chronic anxiety”
by the absence of playfulness, which reflects both intimacy and the ability to maintain
distance. Without it, organizations lose perspective, everything becomes dire, the
repertoire of responses to problems are thin.

5. Lead through Self-differentiation

The solution to imaginative gridlock and chronic anxiety in the organization, according to
Friedman, is the presence of well-differentiation in the leader(s) In other words,
leadership through self-differentiation.

“Self-differentiation is a term used to describe one whose emotional process is no longer

ultimately dependent on anything other than themselves. They are able to live and
function on their own without undue anxiety or over-dependence on others. They are self-
sufficient. Their sense of worth is not dependent on external relationships, circumstances
or occurrences.”
How do leaders become well-differentiated?

They take Time to Self-Define

To define self is to give expression to the thoughts, values and goals one holds dear. It
includes taking stands. To use biblical language, it is self-revelation. It has both an
internal and external dimension. You work on what you believe and you let others know
where you stand. My responsibility as a leader is to get clear about what I think and
believe and communicate those thoughts and beliefs in words and actions – – not to get
others straight about what they should think and believe. The well-differentiated leader is
always working on self.

They practice Self-Regulation

Basic to the process of self-differentiation is the task of consciously working at regulating

one’s anxiety. This includes acknowledging the anxiety and intentionally regulating one’s
reactivity to it. It is hard, daily work. But the leader engaged in self-differentiation
accepts the challenge. She/he knows that change in the emotional process is facilitated by
focusing upon the modification of one’s own behavior rather than the functioning of
others.

Leaders have to work at disconnecting their “hot buttons.” A non-reactive presence in a

system has a calming influence on the emotional processes in the system. In one of
Friedman’s favorite metaphors, he argues that such leaders can break, like an electrical
transformer, the transmission of anxiety throughout the system.

They Stay Connected

Self-differentiating leaders work at self-regulation and self-definition while maintaining

connection to their relational systems. They realize that they cannot affect an emotional
system of which they are not a part. The key is being well-differentiated AND in touch
with your followers. The central dilemma for leaders is how do we get close and maintain
self?

They Expect Resistance

Friedman referred to a leader’s ability to maintain a posture of non-reactive persistence –

– staying on course in the face of resistance – – as “the key to the kingdom.” Although
leaders may seem surprised and disappointed by the reactivity of others to what they
consider their creative self-differentiated leadership efforts, resistance is actually
systemic in nature. It comes with the territory. Leaders must be prepared for resistance
and be ready to keep plugging away.

Self-differentiated leadership disturbs the homeostasis, the “balance”, of an emotional

system. The resistance is the “kickback” of the systemic forces themselves to this “loss of
balance” – – even if the original condition was one of “stuckness.” In contrast to the
“rearrangement of symptoms” that often passes for change, systemic change includes
resistance to the unfamiliar and therefore uncomfortable readjustment that is necessary to
move to a new state of balance.

They Avoid Peace-Mongering

Friedman coined the phrase “peace-monger” to describe the destruction caused by some
leaders in their communities. The leader’s failure of nerve reflects the epidemic in
today’s culture that favors false harmony and good feelings over progress and integrity.
His words about peace-mongering are biting:

“In any type of institution whatsoever, when a self-directed, imaginative, energetic, or

creative member is being consistently frustrated and sabotaged rather than encouraged
and supported, what will turn out to be true one hundred percent of the time, regardless of
whether the disrupters are supervisors, subordinates, or peers, is that the person at the
very top of that institution is a peace-monger. By that I mean a highly anxious risk-
avoider, someone who is more concerned with good feelings than with progress, someone
whose life revolves around the axis of consensus, a “middler,” someone who is so
incapable of taking well-defined stands that his “disability” seems to be genetic, someone
who functions as if she had been filleted of her backbone, someone who treats conflict or
anxiety like mustard gas–one whiff, on goes the emotional gas mask, and he flits. Such
leaders are often “nice,” if not charming.”