LEADERSHIP: HOPE FOR FAMILY AND CHURCH Theology and Family Systems Theory in Dialogue
Lawrence E. Matthews, D. Min.
PART 1
A DIFFERENT UNDERSTANDING OF LEADERSHIP
We live in one of those historic moments when the forces of rapid change and the accompanying social crises cry out for maturity and informed judgment. At the same time, however, these same forces work in opposition to the very qualities so desperately needed. Viewed from the perspective of the human venture, ours is a familiar situation. To live relatively secure and satisfying lives on spaceship earth has never been easy. Yet ours is a new situation in so far as we are having to deal with the effects of a revolution in communication technology that immediately brings the major crises of the entire world into the living rooms of our homes.
The diagnoses and the prescriptions for cure of our situation multiply daily. A recurring theme is the need for (1) clearer understanding of the problems and (2) effective leadership to address them. There continues to be, however, a lack of agreement as to the true nature of our problems and of leadership itself. In this paper I will focus upon two resources which I believe offer valuable insights into these issues: theology and family systems theory - - in particular the pioneering theoretical work of Dr. Murray Bowen and its application to leadership as taught by Rabbi Edwin Friedman. I believe the understanding of leadership that emerges from a genuine dialogue between them can be a source of hope as we confront our present situation.
According to Bowen, our moment in history can be understood as a period of what he termed societal regression, one of those times when the chronic, free-floating anxiety that is always present in societies spikes. Bowen understood the human venture as a constant struggle between two forces that compete for dominance in all persons. There is the togetherness force that moves us towards each other and the individual force that moves us toward distinct person hood. He observed that as anxiety heightens, the togetherness force becomes more dominant and results in a stuck-togetherness that subverts the individual force which moves us in the direction of less reactive, more thoughtful functioning. As a result, our anxiety-driven tribalism and reactivity defeat the very resources we need to get unstuck.
My mentor in Bowen Theory, Edwin Friedman, characterized our present situation as one in which:
... the focus shifts toward pathology rather than strength, safety becomes more important than adventure, adaptation is toward the dependent and empathy becomes more important than responsibility.1
Some families and individuals are able to respond less reactively and more thoughtfully to heightened anxiety in their surroundings, but these seem always to constitute a minority. The vast majority are caught up in the free floating societal anxiety and are, therefore, most vulnerable in times of societal regression. Their reaction is to displace their personal and family anxieties into institutions that are themselves caught up in the collective anxiety of the moment. The process is accelerated by a media that has both the technology and economic motivation to constantly raise the anxiety level.
At such times, problems surface in every human institution, but their presence is keenly experienced in those that are characterized by the most personal and intense relationships. Families and religious institutions are at the top of the list. Home may be where the heart is, but it is also the place where whatever is happening in the other organs of those who live there is shared, especially fear, anger and blame. And religious institutions are not far behind as members displace their personal and family problems into churches and synagogues already caught up in the anxiety of the larger community.
Now I turn to the other perspective in this dialogue: theology. Seward Hiltner, a pioneer in the field of pastoral care and counseling, taught me that the unique function of theology is to inquire into and rethink the faith in the light of all available data, and to do so on behalf of all believers. He cautioned that since this investigation must always be done in the light of revelation, there can be no simple baptizing of the point of view of any particular philosophy or science. However, his assumption was that these other efforts, and I include Bowen Family Systems Theory, contain accurate descriptions of "the way things are" from their perspectives. Likewise, theology brings to the dialogue with philosophy and science, and again I include Bowen Theory, a description of "the way things are" from a depth dimension uniquely its own.
I believe a theological diagnosis of our present predicament begins with a realistic view of the human situation and of God's activity in it. Created in the image of God, human beings are not gods. We are finite beings who share much in common with the rest of the created world, especially the capacity for anxious, self-destructive behavior. A theological word would also include the invitation to embrace this reality through faith in God, whose faithfulness alone can ultimately calm our frantic attempts at self-salvation. As always, this word of grace is mostly either unheard or unheeded. But in spite of such rejection, God persists in redeeming the beloved creation and the resources of grace and healing are always present. I am convinced that what we call "leadership" is one means by which these divinely offered resources can be present in our situation. To reflect theologically upon this concept is, I believe, to identify the phenomenon we call "leadership" as one of the built-into-creation means by which God can be creatively present in the life process.
A primary concept of Bowen Theory is the reality of what Bowen called the "emotional system". It is not an easy concept to grasp, but it is basic to this understanding of leadership. Dr. Michael Kerr, who followed Murray Bowen as Director of the Georgetown Family Center, understands the emotional system as " ... a naturally occurring system in all forms of life that enables an organism to receive information (from within itself and its environment), to integrate that information and respond on the basis of it."2
It extends beyond the individual to include relationship systems. One way Friedman conceptualized this was in terms of "field theory".
"In field theory parts of a system do not function simply according to their nature. Rather they express that part of their nature that is promoted or inhibited by their position in an overall set of relationships. One may apply this way of thinking to transistors, to genes, to the planets or to the members of a family or team."3
What we call leadership is viewed from this perspective as a natural phenomenon that fulfills an important function within an emotional system. It is an essential dimension of the emotional process of every relational system. The way the leader functions affects the entire system and the systemic processes themselves. It even has the power to modify the emotional processes transmitted from previous generations.
Since Bowen's initial focus was upon the family emotional system, his understanding of leadership emerged from his work with families. He wrote:
"Operationally, ideal family treatment begins when one can find a family leader with the courage to define self, who is as invested in the welfare of the family as in self, who is neither angry nor dogmatic, whose energy goes to changiong self rather than telling others what they should do. ... A family leader is beyond the popular notion of power."4
To think this way about leadership requires nothing less than a paradigm shift. Rather than focusing upon others, leaders are challenged to focus upon self care and self expression as the keys to their influence upon the functioning of others. Such an understanding does not lessen the importance of the role of the leader. What it does is reframe that role. It shifts the leader's responsibility from how others function (over which he or she has little control) to how the leader functions, over which the leader has a great deal of control. Although the leader's functioning always affects the system, it becomes especially important in periods of high anxiety like our own. When understood within this systemic framework, leadership offers the possibility of creative response in times of heightened anxiety. I believe it makes possible a posture of hopefulness amid circumstances that easily result in reactions of despair and cynicism.
The operative word is possibility. If leadership is a naturally occurring phenomenon in all relational systems, the possibilities offered by the phenomenon are realized only through choices and actions. Therefore the possibility of incorrect choices and ultimately harmful actions is always present. Applied to family and religious institutions, the leadership position can be filled in ways that bring disaster to the relational system just as surely as this function can be carried out in ways that benefit it. Although Bowen Theory offers us a new way of thinking about relationships and relationship systems, it does not provide us with an automatic solution to the problems we face. It is not a quick fix. However, I believe it does provide a way to address our problems.
According to the theory, the way to more adequate and less reactive functioning is through a process Bowen called the differentiation of self. Simply stated, this concept refers to the life-long process of growing a self from the inside. From birth all of us are shaped by the relational systems in which we live. These outside emotional forces tell us who we are and what it means to be a person in our particular family and culture. We are literally defined from outside ourselves.
As persons "grow up" and increasingly choose their responses and act from motives that arise from within themselves, this inwardly determined functioning has the potential for affecting the emotional process of their relational systems. When persons are able to separate (differentiate) from the emotional processes that surround them, they stand a much better chance of providing the vision and challenge necessary for any system to change and grow. The inability to clearly see the way ahead and the lack of courage to make necessary changes usually result from being too emotionally fused with a system rather than from incompetence or any lack of ideas. The shift of focus to a person's functioning ("in here") rather than upon the reactions of the environment ("out there") can connect one to the inner resources needed to persevere and even thrive in a hostile environment. After all, is this not the key to the continued existence of human beings on planet earth?
Friedman was the most influential interpreter of Bowen Theory among leaders of religious institutions. His book, Generation to Generation, is now introducing a second generation of religious leaders to this way of thinking. When Friedman applied Bowen Theory to the broader concept of leadership, he spoke of leadership through self-differentiation. This is a description of the qualities and characteristics that enable persons in leadership positions to function in ways that are less reactive to the anxiety in their systems and, therefore, more likely to promote better decision making and functioning on the part of others. It refers to a process and not an accomplishment. It is a life-long work-in-progress that involves taking responsibility for one's thinking and actions and encouraging others to do the same.
Leadership through self-differentiation is a matter of being. It affirms the inherent value of the force that moves us toward individual self hood, while at the same time stressing the importance of being connected to others in ways that truly enhance them and ourselves. It is not a cop-out on either responsibility for self or responsibility to others. Such a concept fits my understanding of the way God is at work in us and through us. And it is broad enough and basic enough to fit every human situation from families to congregations and nations and all the other institutions that result from our life in community.
To conceptualize leadership in this way requires some major shifts in our usual thinking about the subject.
(1) The first is a shift in context. As noted already, the emotional system becomes the context for understanding leadership, now viewed as an important dimension of a larger process. This means that one of the key functions of leadership is maintaining awareness of this larger process rather than focusing only upon content. It is amazing how much time and effort leaders spend on content rather than the emotional process, of which the content is only a symptom. Troubled families - - and troubled churches - - usually focus upon the individual or group designated as "the problem" and ignore the deeper relational dynamics that produced and sustain the problem person or group.
(2) Second, there is a shift in focus. Much of the literature on leadership focuses upon the "others", those "out there" whom the leader is attempting to lead, their goals and their objectives. The assumption seems to be that the leader's major task is to understand and motivate others. Family systems theory reverses the picture. The needs and goals of others are not ignored, but they are prioritized differently. The leader's primary responsibility becomes paying attention to her or his own growth and ideas, realizing that even though you can't put motivation into people, you can challenge them with your ideas and vision.
When a pastor in one of our workshops began to teach this understanding of leadership to her Diaconate, an older life-long member revealed that she understood. She remarked: "This is different. Everything else we have done was to try to change the church. This is about changing ourselves." One of the most helpful analogies regarding this shift in focus is the instruction given to all airline passengers before takeoff: if you have another person you wish to assist in an emergency, put your oxygen mask on first and then help the other person put theirs on.
I know from experience that this shift is met with resistance and misunderstanding by many persons hearing it for the first time, especially those of us who live within a Christian tradition. It sounds selfish and, therefore, wrong. But self, in this sense, has nothing to do with what we usually intend when we use the term "selfish". Friedman maintained that the grammatical uniqueness of the word selfish reflects the ambivalence inherent in the reality of self.
... selfish is almost the only word in the English language where the addition of the suffix -ish turns an otherwise neutral noun, self, into the pejorative label, self-ish . Normally, adding -ish to a word only means "having the quality of". Book-ish is not necessarily negative; nor is blue-ish, red-ish, pink-ish, fad-ish, or Jew-ish. ... Why doesn't self-ish mean behaving like or having the character of a self, being "self-y"?5
Selfishness then, as the term is usually used, would point to just the opposite: taking from others out of a sense of personal deficiency; focusing upon self out of a sense of lack of self; attempting to fill up perceived inner emptiness by acquiring things or relationships. Bowen Theory assumes a difference between "self" and "pseudo-self". "Pseudo-self" refers to knowledge and beliefs that are acquired from others and are therefore negotiable in relationships with others. Created in response to emotional pressures, pseudo-self can be modified by emotional pressures. "Self", on the other hand, refers to knowledge and beliefs that are expressions of a person's own growth and development. Bowen used the language of biology when he named the process of growing as an emotionally separate human being the "differentiation of self". It is living life from the inside, having a "mind of your own", taking stands that express one's own commitments and ideals and allowing others to do the same. Self is non-negotiable. It simply is. It is who I am, really. It has to do with integrity, honesty and self-regulation.
During a 1987 conference on Bowen Theory and theology, Bowen stated:
"A major quality in the differentiation of self is complete selflessness in which "doing for others" replaces personal selfish goals. Jesus Christ has been a model of total selflessness. ... A well-differentiated self in families has to get beyond the selfish promotion of self. One has always to be aware of "the other". ... When selflessness becomes a thinking model, largely separate from the feeling process, it can become a vehicle for a special form of differentiation. With that orientation, true selflessness, devoid of selfishness, can become part of the differentiation itself."6
At the close of a monthly Theory session's presentation on the subject of self-differentiation, Friedman, the rabbi who was also a therapist, defined it this way:
"To self-differentiate is to be in touch with the universal force of all protoplasm that goes back to creation, is part of evolution and leads, not to narcissism, but to what is basic in all of us that enables connection to take place. It is spiritual."7
The more differentiated the self - - and I include connection to others - - the more natural concern for others becomes. Freed from the responsibility for others (excluding infants, young children and persons incapable of being responsible for themselves), one is freer to be responsible to others. In my work with leaders - - from parents to congregational leaders and pastors - - nothing is more basic than this shift of focus. Without it, I do not believe one can grasp the radical nature of leadership through self-differentiation. It seems to me that part of the difficulty is the paradoxical nature of the insight itself. Supposedly, the test of good leadership is the ability to focus upon the needs of others. But the assumption of a family systems understanding is that the ability to effectively fulfill the function of leadership in an emotional system requires that we begin with a focus upon the health, maturity and growth of the leader himself or herself. The leadership function is an expression of the "self" of the leader. How the leader functions is the crucial factor and this is understood as a matter of "being" preceding and finding expression through "doing". It has to do with who a person is, one's core responses to life and one's core belief system about life.
Leaders facilitate lasting change by focusing upon the modification of their own behavior and functioning rather than modifying the behavior of others. This understanding of leadership also avoids creating a polarity between leaders and followers. The emphasis is upon the functional position of the leader within the context of the system, not her personality or knowledge. The position of the leader is the leader's responsibility. The leader's task is to function in that position in ways that benefit the ultimate good and goals of the system. The personal formation of others is their responsibility and results from the self-actualizing process of response to challenge rather than imitation or cloning. Simply stated, self-differentiation promotes self-differentiation. The best evidence of an individual's change is the constructive impact it has on the functioning of others. Self-differentiating leaders know this and are better able to resist the temptation to attempt to will others into compliance with their ideas and goals. Which is to say that a central ethical issue for leaders is that of coercion.
PART 2 LEADERSHIP THROUGH THE DIFFERENTIATION OF SELF
If this is what leadership looks like from a family systems perspective, how does one do it? If leadership has to do first with "being", what are the qualities of leaders engaged in the process of self-differentiation?
When Friedman applied Bowen Theory to these questions, he concluded that there are at least three dimensions to this phenomenon we call leadership. I label them "dimensions of a phenomenon" because it seems to me that they are inextricably bound to one another. To examine them individually may be practically helpful, but in doing so we should not forget that each one is a dimension of a unified process being lived out by unique human beings. These are not "three tips for would-be leaders" or "three simple steps to more effective parenting or pastoring". Rather they are three of the more visible signs of the presence of the life-long process of growing "self" from the inside, as contrasted to the pseudo-self we acquire from others. Much of Friedman's work focused upon the relationship between this process of self-differentiation and the phenomenon we call leadership. He spoke and wrote about leadership through self-differentiation, with "through" being the determinative word. Again, the emphasis is upon the direct relationship between a person's self-differentiation and the leadership function of that person within a system.
(1) The first dimension of leadership through self-differentiation is self-regulation. Friedman often referred to this as "non-anxious presence". I prefer language that keeps us focused upon the difficult and challenging process of regulating one's own anxiety. (This was also Friedman's practice in our monthly Theory sessions.) I've never met a non-anxious person. In fact, the term is in direct contradiction with a basic tenet of Bowen Theory. Bowen Theory is about anxiety! It assumes that the basic human issue is anxiety. And this is meant to include much more than the anxiety of which we are consciously aware. Anxiety, as used in family systems theory, encompasses the total human response to the perception of threat, real or imagined. It comes with human life. It may belong to all protoplasm. And yet 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. It is never done in the sense of being finished. But the leader engaged in self-differentiation accepts the challenge. She knows that change is facilitated by focusing upon the modification of one's own behavior rather than the functioning of others.
Bowen Theory offers practical help in this endeavor by providing a "lens" through which one is able to view relationship systems. The concept of the emotional triangle enables one to actually observe the emotional process which - - although always present and ultimately determinative - - is in most situations outside of conscious awareness. To "see" the impact of others upon oneself, the impact one has on others and the impact others have on each other equips leaders with a valuable resource for self-regulation. This is why understanding the theory is so essential, why an integral component of this lecture is tomorrow's workshop on the basics of the theory and why the ongoing Leadership In Ministry Workshops are the main focus of my present ministry.
One of the most significant contributions of family systems theory is its awareness of the multi-generational nature of much of our anxiety. Not only does our anxiety come with the territory of being human, it comes in unique ways as part of the territory of being human in our particular family systems. This can be a source of despair as we find ourselves living out the reactive patterns of past generations, but it can also be a source of growth and change as we consciously face and rework those patterns. Therapy and healing in a family systems model involve such reworking and the freedom discovered through this process enables one to better regulate reactivity in the present.
I have learned from my personal experience and my experience with parents I have coached and pastors and other leaders who participate in our workshops that the people who are able to become less anxious and less reactive are the ones who are involved in reworking their relationships in their family of origin. Michael Kerr writes:
"Learning enough about the multi-generational emotional history of one's family to change the way one thinks about the family and about oneself probably contributes more to the effort to 'grow up' than anything else a person can do."8
The theological word here is a basic one. Jesus often expressed the central human problem in terms of anxiety. He understood the human dilemma as one of lack of trust in the faithfulness and goodness of God. "Seek first the Kingdom" was his message. He taught his disciples to deal with their anxiety by trusting God's faithfulness as the core posture of their lives. And he warned that the failure to do this results in bondage to false gods and rewards a person with a life of fear and mistrust. Working at self-regulation - - monitoring and regulating one's anxious responses to life - - is a large part of the nitty-gritty work of differentiating a self. It seems to me that only the theological word of God's faithfulness can ultimately free us from the anxiety that comes with the territory of being human. Through worship, prayer and meditation the disciple is increasingly enabled to live life from a posture of trust in God's trustworthiness.
(2) The second dimension of the process of leadership through self-differentiation is self-definition. Just as self-regulation is the internal dimension of this process, self-definition is the external dimension. Here the focus shifts to the communication of self to other selves, and I include all the various forms communication can and will take. 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. I have come to understand this as one of my major jobs as a pastor. My task 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. It's a full-time job and a difficult one.
Self-definition has a powerful effect upon others and, when it is done by one who is working at regulating his or her own reactivity, it is an invitation to others to do the same. It enables dialogue and it causes things to happen. When a parent takes a stand that clearly expresses his or her true thoughts and values, family relationships change. When a pastor is able to preach the sermon that clearly and non-reactively expresses what the pastor believes about the emotionally loaded issue facing the congregation, the people are invited and challenged to do the same - - and some will. And when the resistance of those who are most reactive surfaces - - as it most probably will - - if the pastor and other leaders are able to maintain that clarity of definition, the congregation stands its best chance of actually responding to the situation in faithfulness and obedience. It might even act redemptively.
I stated earlier that coercion is a basic ethical issue for leaders. It is my experience that leaders who are working at their own self-definition are better able to resist the temptation to attempt to will others into compliance with their own ideas and goals. To focus upon clarifying and communicating one's own ideas and goals is an invitation for others to do the same. Theologically, it is to affirm our belief that we human beings must respect individual freedom and responsibility just as God does. Whatever is meant by the phrase "the will of God", it does not mean that God violates the freedom and responsibility that is part and parcel of our God-created humanity. When willing others to be or do is present in a family or church leader, trust in self-definition has been abandoned and a coercion that can only lead to a conflict of wills has been chosen.
(3) The third dimension of leadership through self-differentiation is connectedness. Self-differentiating leaders work at self-regulation and self-definition while maintaining connection to their relational systems. It is especially important to maintain this connectedness when sabotage or resistance is encountered because of the leader's self-differentiating behavior. At such times a leader is tempted to either give up or cut off. But if the leader persists, does not withdraw or quit and remains connected and on course, there is a good chance that the system will follow. Friedman referred to this posture of non-reactive persistence as "the key to the kingdom."
Which brings me to the matter of hope.
Biblically understood, hope is the result - - a by-product , if you will - - of faith. It is possible because of faith in the faithfulness of God. It is not based upon faith in the human capacity to fulfill the modern "myth of progress", whether scientific, political, economic or technological. Biblically understood, hope is also related to the community of faith. There the stories of God's past faithfulness are retold and the reality of God's presence in the contemporary moment is celebrated in worship and experienced in the life of the community. Therefore the nature of the church's community - - its togetherness - - is always an issue in the faith journey. Family systems theory teaches us that what we call "community" can be an expression of either the fusion that results from fear and reactivity or a connectedness that expresses choice and mutual commitment. We need to be connected as well as to be separate individuals. The challenge is how to have both a connection that is not fusion and an individualism that is not isolated reactivity.
Jack Mills is the author of the Pulitzer Prize winning book, God:A Biography, and a visiting professor of humanities at Cal Tech. In a New York Times Magazine article titled "Religion Makes A Comeback, (Belief to Follow)" he writes:
"Now, even people without faith are looking for God ... Despair, according to a study published in the American Heart Association's journal, is as bad for the human heart as a pack-a-day smoking habit. "Steps should be taken," writes one doctor in the study, "to try to change" the cardiac patient's situation."9
Mills raises the question, by whom should this attempt at changing the patient's situation be made? "By religion?" he asks. He continues:
"In our day religion often begins in despair - - in personal despair that hardens the arteries, in cultural despair that darkens the heart, in intellectual despair that humbles the mind - - and moves from there to hope, not through argument but through affiliation. (italics are mine) ... Just how anyone makes the decision to affiliate - - to go it, but not alone, to be ... a joiner - - is difficult to describe and impossible to recover, but it happens, this decision, and many such decisions can accrue to a movement. A movement toward hope? Perhaps. A refusal, at least, to despair."10
And there it is: the need for community if there is to be hope. But such community moves beyond the herding instinct of an anxiety driven togetherness. I believe family systems theory can help us understand the process by which such community becomes a reality and theology can clarify the divine initiative that enables it to become a reality. And I believe, viewed from both of these perspectives, leadership is a key ingredient in the process.
Leadership can provide marriages and families with the resources necessary to cope with rapid and unsettling change. Leadership can play a determinative role in helping to move the church beyond the polarized extremes of both the authoritarian "this is the answer" of religious fundamentalism and fanaticism, and the fuzzy "there don't seem to be any answers" of a so-called liberalism that can only celebrate the irreligion of the secular city. If there is to be a word of hope for either family or church, I believe it will be spoken by leaders. The theological language for such leaders would be: persons centered in God's love and faithfulness who are thereby set free to love and faithfully serve others. The family process language would be: persons moving towards self-differentiation who freely choose to be connected to others in ways that encourage their self-differentiation.
Christian theology assumes a posture of hope because of the faithfulness of God toward God's creation, supremely expressed in Jesus Christ. Family systems theory assumes a hopeful posture because of a belief in natural processes that are understood as moving towards new expressions of the life forces that drive creation. And both perspectives understand human anxiety as a barrier to such hope.
The late Paul Tillich understood anxiety as a central theological issue. He defined it as"'the state in which a being is aware of its possible nonbeing" and he interpreted the crises of Western culture in terms of this anxiety. In The Courage to Be he wrote:
"In our Western culture, the end of ancient civilization was characterized by ontic anxiety (the anxiety of fate and death), the Middle Ages by moral anxiety (the anxiety of guilt and condemnation) and the modern era by spiritual anxiety (the anxiety of emptiness and meaninglessness)."11
Viewed from a family systems perspective, the anxiety in our culture leaves us stuck in a reactive togetherness that inhibits our potential for the creative "out of the box" thinking that might enable us to get unstuck. Viewed from a theological perspective, our anxiety leads us to place our trust in the false gods of materialism and progress and the technology, political systems, science and economic theories that prop them up. Our need is for a spirit of adventure, but we pursue security and certainty. Our need is for genuine community that fosters personal growth, but we disintegrate into ever smaller tribal communities that stunt the development of personal responsibility to the neighbor at home and abroad. Our need is for a posture of hope, but our almost absolute trust in fragile political and economic systems barely hides the underlying posture of despair.
There is a long list of harsh realities that we face: a tribalized, conflicted world; Wall Street's extreme gyrations; voter apathy in every political arena; the church's frantic embrace of any program that guarantees numerical growth and easy success; and the family's involvement in divorce courts, drug rehabilitation programs, fearful flight to walled homogenized suburban enclaves or fearful banishment to decaying inner city ghettos. But if we are able to view these realities as symptoms - - symptoms of deeper problems and not the basic problems themselves - - then I believe we will have taken the first step along a more hopeful path to some viable solutions. And I view this as the basic understanding of both theology and family systems theory. An anxious family cannot move beyond a focus upon its symptomology. An anxious society functions in much the same way. According to family systems theory, in order for a family to break free from its stuckness upon its symptoms, someone in the family must begin to function in a more self-defined way. From a biblical perspective, if the people of God are ever to break camp at Sinai or stop going in circles in the wilderness, a Moses or a Joshua has to point the way. In other words, what we call leadership is necessary if change is to take place.
The last time I heard Ed Friedman present a public lecture was at Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, Virginia. After his presentation, I walked up to him and, before I could say anything, he asked: "What are you doing here? You've heard all of this." To which I replied, "No, I heard you say something tonight I don't remember ever having heard you say before." "What was that?" he asked. My reply was, "I heard you say that in order for a leader to move towards self-differentiation, the person has to experience serendipity." "I don't think I have ever said that before," he responded, "but I have come to believe it is true." "Just exactly what do you mean by serendipity?" I asked. He smiled and answered, "There has to be an openness to the not yet, a willingness to be surprised and have one's certainties rearranged."
That conversation took place a few months before his death and I never had the opportunity to pursue the matter with him. But months later, when I viewed the video "Rediscovering Leadership", there was Ed saying:
"To unstick a system someone has to be willing to encounter serendipity, to be willing to adventure. ... The focus upon safety rather than adventure defeats this and leaves the system stuck."
Among the various dictionary definitions of the word "hope" is this one: "The feeling that what is desired is also possible." Hope deals with possibilities, not guarantees. Whether you describe it as an openness to adventure or an openness to the Holy Spirit, it is a posture made possible by faith. It is the posture of self-differentiating leaders.
For the next to the last word, I turn again to Friedman:
When a relationship system reaches that point (of gridlock), it can only get unstuck ... when it can bring forth leaders
- who can separate themselves enough from the emotional processes around them so that they can see things differently,
- who are hell-bent to pursue their vision,
- who can persist in the face of the sabotage of others, enemies and colleagues,
- who are challenged where others are made anxious
- and who value adventure more than safety.
This necessary condition for fundamental change is equally true for any relationship system, be it a family, an organization, a nation or even an entire civilization.12
And for the last word, I turn to the unknown author of the New Testament Letter to the Hebrew Christians:
To have faith is to be sure of the things we hope for, to be certain of the things we cannot see. (Hebrews 11:1)
Originally presented by The Reverend Dr. Lawrence E. Matthews as the J. C. Wynn Lecture at Colgate Rochester Divinity School in Rochester, New York, on November 5, 1998.
Back to Resources and Updates
1. Friedman, Edwin H. "Reinventing Leadership". The Guilford Press, 1996. Videocassette and Discussion Guide.
2. Kerr, Michael E. & Bowen, Murray. Family Evaluation . W. W. Norton & Co., 1988, p. 27.
3. Friedman, op. cit. Discussion Guide, p. 34.
4. Bowen, Murray, Kerr & Bowen, op. cit. pp.342,343.
5. Ibid., p. 28.
6. Systems and Spirituality: Bowen Systems Theory, Faith and Theology , The Papers and Proceedings of a Conference on Theology. Washington Theological Union, July 1987, pp. 14-15.
7. Friedman, Unpublished lecture presented in Bethesda, Maryland, December 11, 1992.
8. Kerr, op. cit., p. 309.
9."The New York Time Magazine", special issue, "God Decentralized", December 7, 1997, p.59.
10. Ibid.
11.Tillich, Paul. The Courage To Be. Yale University Press, 1952. p. 57.
12.Friedman, "The Challenge of Change and the Spirit of Adventure". Unpublished essay, p. 4.