Prepare to Squirm: No Sweat Quotes Edwin Friedman
When I was 15, sitting in my high school cafeteria eating lunch with my pal No Sweat Kosinski, I never dreamed that half a century into the future we’d be carrying on philosophical conversations about leadership. That’s what happened last week when we discovered that we both had read Edwin Friedman’s book A Failure of Nerve.
Friedman had three careers rolled into one. Besides being a successful writer, he was an ordained Jewish rabbi with a congregation in Bethesda, Md. He was also a family therapist and consultant who advised church groups on congregational leadership. He had an extraordinary understanding of what makes leaders effective in both healthy and dysfunctional environments, and he’s the guy who invited each of us to be “a non-anxious presence in an anxious world.” Sadly, he died before his time. Here’s No Sweat’s email:
Mikey,
I’m not surprised to hear you’ve read “A Failure of Nerve.” I guess it is true that great minds think alike. Though this book is not an easy read, Friedman pulled no punches and made a lot of sense. My favorite quote is the description of weak, ineffectual leaders in what he called his “Universal Law of Leadership.”
“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 100% of the time, regardless of whether the disruptors are supervisors, subordinates, or peers, is that the person at the very top of the 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 has 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.”
Why don’t you share Friedman’s Law with the members of your groups and coaching clients? It should create some lively discussion and make a few of them squirm in their seats. I’ll be anxious to hear how they react to his wisdom.
Regards,
No Sweat
Two things became clear to me as I reread Friedman’s Universal Law:
- Weak leaders often are appeasers. Not only do they tolerate the bad behavior of the most dysfunctional members of the group, but they also placate and thus, encourage the bad behavior of these misfits.
- Weak leaders hope that by appeasing bad behavior, they will be more popular. But hope is not a strategy; the outcome of appeasement is the opposite of what was intended. Placating bad behavior leads to lost respect and makes a leader less popular and far less effective.
Friedman nailed it in the 150 words of his Universal Law and as No Sweat predicted, I found myself squirming in my seat when Friedman mentioned the leader who “is more concerned with good feelings than with progress.” There was a time when that was me, and I paid for it. I also learned from it, and I try every day to pass on the uncomfortable lessons I learned to those with whom I work.