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Welcome to Episode 235 of The Non Anxious Leader Podcast. I'm Jack Shitama. Today's episode comes from a listener question. This is Holly, thanks to Holly, who also participated in the Family systems book study in The Nonanxious Leader Network. So, Holly has been working on her own ability to be a non anxious presence. Here's what Holly emailed to me. I am realizing that one of my resistances to taking responsibility for myself, at least by verbalizing that I am doing so, is that in a toxic environment, others can jump on such statements if they are looking for someone to blame, even if unconsciously. I am wondering if you can address this tension of taking responsibility for self without playing into others who are in a pattern of not taking responsibility for themselves. Thanks, Holly, for a great question because this gets to the challenge of self differentiating and leading through self differentiation. This type of blaming and not taking responsibility for self in response to one's own differentiation is sabotage. One paradox is that sabotage is likely to occur when the leader is functioning at their best, that is, when they are taking responsibility for self. As Holly notes, this often is an unconscious response, or I would say an automatic and mindless resistance, an automatic and mindless response.

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According to Edwin Friedmann, learning how to deal with this aspect of leadership, whether in a family, congregation, or organization, may be more important virtually than any other aspect of leadership, such as vision, personal motivation, persistence, or motivational techniques. The family systems approach distinguishes between togetherness, which is good, and stuck togetherness, which is not. It refuses to keep the system intact at the expense of the self integrity and self definition of its members. When you define yourself, when you take responsibility for yourself, the better differentiated in the system will do the same. Those who are less so will try to define you through blaming or accusations and the refusal to take responsibility for self. The first step here is to ask ask yourself, what inside of me annoys or scares me and increases my anxiety when people don't take responsibility for self? Where in my family of origin does this come from? What's familiar about this? There's a reason that you have trouble responding as a non anxious presence. We have been trained in our family of origin to respond, to cope in certain ways, and that training runs deep. A family systems approach encourages us to rework how we respond to anxiety in our family of origin so we can retrain our brains to respond differently.

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This is a life's work, but I found that it is the work that is most helpful to me personally and professionally. The second step is to expect people to react this way. If you understand that this is how dependent people respond, you won't be surprised and you can prepare yourself to respond as a non anxious presence. It can also help you to be more compassionate, understanding that they can't help themselves. Remind yourself that this is how the dependent keeps systems stuck. Friedmann calls this the leverage of the dependent. By defining you and making you responsible for their needs, they increase your anxiety and keep you from responding in ways that are consistent with your values and goals. That's sabotage. A clergy colleague once texted me to tell me that a person he served on a committee with had texted him some snarky comments. Then he realized that they were defining him and not themselves, so he avoided a conflict of wills by neither arguing or agreeing. He wanted to share this win with me. This leads to the third step, which is to not get reactive or adaptive, to neither argue or give in while staying in touch with those who are resistant, trying to define you and trying to get you to choose togetherness over self definition.

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Friedmann defines this as the essence of dealing with sabotage and in a failure of nerve, he calls the ability to deal with sabotage the keys to the kingdom. Of course, the best way to avoid an adaptive or reactive response is through paradox and playfulness. The question is, how do we do this? Paradox and playfulness often go together. Sometimes the best way to be paradoxical is to do so while being playful. Paradox is saying the opposite of what you think you should say. For example, when someone gives you an ultimatum, call their bluff. What they're wanting you to do is to get you to beg them to stay and to give in to their demands. That tends to be what our intuitive response is, what our instinctive response is. But this is the leverage of of the dependent, because as long as we are trying to get them to change their minds, we are the ones who are stuck. Paradox would be to say, That's your choice and I'll support whatever you decide. There are two benefits to paradox. First, it helps you to manage your own anxious responses by helping you avoid a conflict of wills.

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You no longer have to argue or agree with the other. You just have to respond in a way that shows you care in a way that helps you to maintain emotional connection. The second benefit of paradox is it gives responsibility for self back to the other. As long as you argue or give in, they have you stuck. They can avoid taking responsibility for self because they can stay focused on defining you. Playfulness helps to bring the anxiety level down. It's hard to be playful when you're worried about how others will respond. So remind yourself that you can't be responsible for others and their responses. In generation to generation, Friedmann gives an example of playfulness. When a parishioner says to the pastor, Your children certainly are not setting a good example defining the children and not self one response would be, You should see them when they're really acting out. Another response could be, I guess you're going to have to see us as human after all. Note how these statements avoid a conflict of wills are playful and are paradoxical. This is not easy to pull off and when it comes off as sarcastic, then it's probably best to avoid playfulness.

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But you can still be paradoxical and I find the best way to do this is to agree in a paradoxical way by defining yourself. In this example, you can say, I know I hate being a bad parent. Although you're agreeing, it's in a paradoxical way. You're not agreeing to discipline your kids or keep them away from the congregation. You are defining yourself and saying, I hate that I'm a bad parent. If they press on by asking, What are you going to do about it? One response would be, I guess I'm going to have to spend more time with them and spend less time with the congregation. That's paradox. Remember that criticism is a push for togetherness. When you respond paradoxically, you're refusing to let the other define you while giving them responsibility for their own togetherness needs. This is easy to do in a vacuum. The hard part is to actually be a non anxious presence in those anxious moments. Remember that the best you can hope for is to get it right 50 % of the time. Remember that preparation and reflection are critical. Do your best to anticipate the sabotage and prepare some possible responses in advance.

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Practice those responses, whether you role play them with somebody else or do it in your head. After those anxious situations, reflect on how things went. Celebrate when they went well and think about how you can do better the next time when things don't go well. You won't always get it right, but you will grow as a non anxious leader. That's it for Episode 235. A little bit shorter than normal, but I think it was really a great question and I hope you found not only that it was a great question, but the answer was helpful. If you're not getting my weekly Two For Tuesday emails, I'll put a link to sign up in the show notes. You can also find previous issues to see what resources are offered. If you have a question for me, please email me at jack@christian-leaders.com. I may not be able to get to it right away, and if I can't find the right answer, I'll let you know, but I'd love to hear what you think will be helpful for you to grow as a non anxious leader. Until next time, thanks and goodbye.