Be Yourself, Especially in Conflict
In the previous two columns I wrote about conflict, stating that it is present in one in five churches to some degree at any time and giving warning signs and some approaches at managing conflict. There is an approach to leadership taught by Edwin Friedman in his landmark book Generation to Generation: Family Process in Church and Synagogue.
Friedman calls it “Leadership through Self-Differentiation” and shows how it avoids the pitfalls in the more commonly found leadership styles of charismatic leaders or consensus leaders. Charismatic leaders bring results, yet do so at great personal cost to the leader and eventual cost to the church which gets used to an over-functioning priest. Consensus leaders end up giving control to those least willing to cooperate.
Friedman offers instead the idea of a style of leadership where the leader is neither over and above the group, nor completely lost in it. He defines the approach this way:
“The basic concept of leadership through self-differentiation is this: If a leader will take primary responsibility for his or her own position as ‘head’ and work to define his or her own goals and self, while staying in touch with the rest of the organism, there is a more than reasonable chance that the body will follow….we are talking about the ability of a leader to be a self while remaining part of the system.”
In this style of leadership, the leader takes “nonreactive, clearly conceived, and clearly defined positions.” This is not always easy. Most church systems are accustomed to either the authoritarian “Father knows best” style of leadership (whether with male or female priest) which works for charismatic leaders to the detriment of the church or leadership that values peace and cohesion above all else and so is by consensus that gives in to all dissent. Without meaning to do so, many will sabotage efforts for the leader to be clear defined and a separate self who is also not an authoritarian dictator.
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The key is self differentiation. This means one should be able to separate one’s thought and emotions from the thoughts and emotions of the system (whether family or church). It is a scale with well differentiated folk being the rarest. They know they need others, but do not depend on approval from others. Without the need to base decisions on reacting to what seems to be wanted, the well differentiated person acts more from careful assessment and reasoned calm. In this person, what is best for the group matters more than caving in to emotion. As a well differentiated person is there own woman (or man) she or he does not need the ego boost and so can reject someone else’s option without being hostile and support another’s view without being wishy-washy. In contract, low differentiation meaning that one think and feels only what the group thinks and feels. These people depend on the approval of others and do what it takes to get that acceptance. This leaves the person more vulnerable to anxiety and stress particularly when dealing with any changes. This is a scale and most of us naturally fall on the low differientiation side but not to the extreme. We have things for which we stand, but will often give in on many things to maintain harmony in a group. In doing so, we give power not to reason, but to those with the strongest emotions.
When I have gotten this right (and those times are surely fewer than I wish) this style of leadership has helped me. I have been able to clearly state where I see the church heading and how we are going about it. This clear definition has sometimes led to others seeing the goal, agreeing with it and offering better ways to get there. By self defining and staying in touch, I get the feedback I must have. My best picture of this is the windows at King of Peace. I felt strongly that as we were building a preschool and fellowship hall, with plans to build a church proper later, that we needed rectangular, more commercial-style windows. Then the church could have gothic arched windows and clearly be the church. I was reasoned. I was rational. As it turns out, I was wrong. But stating what I thought we should do and why allowed others in. I stayed in contact and heard that the building should look like a church as we all knew it would be the only church for a number of years. Our architect echoed this saying that the “architectural vocabulary” of the first building would set the vocabulary for additions to the property, or at least it should. This seems minor, but emotions can run high about just such an architectural decision. Having been clear about the goals and vision, it was possible to change significantly and see that I was wrong and the right course was to build the first building for King of Peace in a way that set the tone for both the church as it was then and as it hoped to be in the future. This was not giving in to emotion, but listening to reason. Only by being clear in leadership, connected to the all involved and listening to reason rather than emotion could we have arrived at the decision that was made.
This is a minor example, but it shows how a system is better prepared for whatever comes its way when all in leadership (not just the priest) have the group’s best interest at heart, but each remain their own person, looking at whatever comes without having to consider the approval of others, but only what is best whether folks like it or not. This is theologically sound as we are to base our sense of ourselves not on what others think of us, but on God’s opinion of us. God created each of us uniquely and we do not live into who we were made to be by descending in to group think. We do better to be our best selves. By Jesus’ example we see that is neither lording over others nor in giving in to mob mentality.
Neither charismatic leaders nor consensus at any price can get us near as far as having the courage to each be our best selves, using the gifts God gave us and having the strength to say what we know to be true even when it is not popular with the group. This style of leadership is, over the long haul, better able to deal with the conflict which will always arise as when one bases what is right or wrong on something more stable than anxiety and emotion it is easier to be non-anxious and non-reactive. This is a way of being the church that can better whether storms. As Friedman writes, “In an emotional atmosphere that is calm and positive, issues that under other circumstances could be lethal are handled objectively.”
The Rev. Canon Frank Logue
Canon to the Ordinary
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