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Welcome to Episode 106 of The Non-anxious Leader podcast. We're going to get right into today's episode. I was recently attending a Zoom lecture at the Center for Family Process, which was founded by Edwin Friedman, author of Generation to Generation: Family Process in Church and Synagogue.

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One of Friedman's colleagues said that Ed always said that a functioning leader always has a loyal opposition. Before we get into what that means, I want to review what a functioning or effective leader is. I'm assuming from Friedman's work that he means one who is leading through self-differentiation. The basic concept of leadership through self-differentiation is that the leader is able to articulate her own goals while maintaining emotional connection with others in the system, especially those who are the most anxious and most resistant.

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A primary role of the leader is vision, and that means thinking about where you believe things should be headed for the family, congregation or organization that you lead. If you're not articulating this vision, if you're not sharing with people where you believe things should be headed, this will increase anxiety in the system because those that are following the leader are expecting her to create direction. They may not agree with it, but they want to know what the leader thinks.

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It's important to understand that leadership through self-differentiation is not about trying to convince others to agree with you. When you do this, you get into a conflict of wills rather than trying to define yourself. You focus more on trying to define others by saying what they should believe. We know that when this happens, people get defensive, anxious and even passive aggressive. Trying to define others will increase the likelihood of people getting entrenched in their beliefs and willing to fight you at every turn.

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This will cause those you lead to lose focus on what you are trying to do and focus more on winning the argument. That is the essence of a conflict of wills. When you focus on defining yourself, without defining others, you are saying, "This is where I'm headed. This is where I believe we should go." You give people the choice to follow or not.

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It seems counterintuitive, but we know that if we try to change their minds, they're going to push back. So this is really the only option that we have, to stay focused on where you believe things should be headed and give people the choice to follow.

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What you will find when you lead in this way is that healthy people will give you their opinion whether they agree or not, and they'll do it in a healthy way. Those who are more anxious will try to find ways to push back against you and even sabotage. The last response, sabotage, is a subject for another day. But suffice to say that Friedman said that you are not leading unless you experience sabotage.

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What he means by this is that leading by definition involves change. If you're not trying to move forward, change for the better, get to a better place, thern you are just managing. And when things change, the most anxious people in the system will resort unwittingly to sabotage.

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To summarize, leadership through self-differentiation is the ability to articulate what you believe in a non-anxious way while, staying emotionally connected to those in the system. Whether that's a family, a congregation or an organization, your focus is on where you are headed, not trying to convince others to agree with you. If you do this, you will end up with a loyal opposition. So we need to understand what that means.

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A loyal opposition are those who oppose what you believe or what you are trying to do, but are loyal enough to say it to you in a healthy way. They will push you to be better because they will cause you to examine your leadership to see if you might be missing something or if you might need to adjust what you are trying to do.

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Patrick Lencioni, in his book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, writes that the second dysfunction is the lack of conflict. He's not suggesting that we need to be fighting all the time. But what he is saying is that if you don't have constructive conflict, you're not going to be effective as a team. If everybody just agrees, you're going to end up with groupthink. Even worse, if people agree on the surface, even when they don't, you will end up with passive aggressive behavior and dysfunction.

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On the other hand, when people passionately debate what they think is best, they are more likely to support your decision, even if it's not what they believe is the best way to go. If as a leader, you are able to facilitate these kinds of discussions, people will feel heard. You will be fostering emotional connection. And because of this, they will be more likely to support whatever decision you make.

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In situations where there is a vote involved, like a church council, if there's healthy debate and people feel heard, they are more likely to go along with the final decision, whichever way the vote goes.

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What's more dangerous is when people's own anxiety prevents them from being able to say what they believe in a healthy debate, and then they end up sabotaging the situation. To the extent that you as a leader can help people to express what they believe in a healthy way, you'll end up helping the team move forward.

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So how do you go about doing this? If you follow my work for any amount of time, you know, one of my favorite sayings is effective leaders are able to say what they believe while giving others the freedom to disagree.

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This is the essence of leadership through self-differentiation because it enables you to define yourself while staying connected to others. I find a helpful way to express it is to say, "I might be wrong, but this is what I believe." And, "You don't have to agree with me. But this is what I think is best."

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Statements like this create emotional space for people to be able to disagree in a healthy way, and that creates the basis for a loyal opposition. By giving people the freedom to disagree, you are inviting them to share what they believe, even if it doesn't agree with what you think. You're not asking them to define you. You're asking them to define themselves.

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Secondly, it's important to stay focused on the mission of the organization. If people perceive that what you are trying to do is self-serving or benefits others outside of the mission, they're going to smell it. The point of having a loyal opposition is that you want to have this passionate debate to get different points of view, to figure out what is best for your mission, how you are going to best achieve your mission.

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Finally, you need to be able to self regulate. It is in that ability to control your own anxiety that you create this emotional space, you create the freedom to disagree. If somebody gets defensive, if somebody gets passionate, if somebody gets anxious and they start criticizing your point of view and you get reactive, if you start defending yourself or arguing with them and increasing the anxiety in the system, this is going to discourage other people from sharing their point of view.

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So , even when the anxious ones come after you, it's important to be able to self regulate. My guideline for that is to not argue, not agree. What you're trying to do there is just pause and allow the anxiety to dissipate. By not arguing with them, you will avoid getting the pushback. You'll avoid getting in the conflict of wills. And by not agreeing, you'll avoid caving in. You won't compromise what you believe, and it will give you a chance to hear what they have to say.

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As I've said before, one of the best ways to do this is by listening, by asking open ended questions that begin with who, what, where, when and how. When you do this, you give people a chance to articulate themselves, even if they're anxious, even if they're trying to define you. And sometimes they will actually calm down. Even if they don't, the point is, on your end, you are able to maintain a non-anxious presence.

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The upside of this is that even if somebody is anxious, but especially when they're not, by listening, you may hear something you need to hear. When somebody is sharing their opinion in a healthy way, it's easy to listen and asking questions will be helpful. Even when they're anxious, asking questions will enable you to regulate your own anxiety.

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If you want to be your best as a leader, then you want to have a loyal opposition and you will find that the most healthy among you, the most self-differentiated among you, even if they believe many things differently than you can be a helpful, loyal opposition. They will want to work with you because you will be a non-anxious presence. You will give them the freedom to disagree. And you are going to want to hear what they have to say because they will help you to be your best as a leader. Leadership through self-differentiation makes this possible.