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Welcome to episode 398 of The Non-Anxious Leader Podcast. I'm Jack Shitama. Before we get into today's episode, I want to remind you that we have 2 learning opportunities coming up. The first is a 4-week book study on Edwin Friedman's A Failure of Nerve. It is called What Is a Failure of Nerve, and I will help you unpack this book as well as apply it to your personal and professional leadership. And it runs on Tuesdays from September 8th to the 29th, from 5:00 to 6:30 PM Eastern Daylight Time. The cost is $99. I will put a link in the show notes to get more information and to register. The second opportunity is The Differentiated Leader, Family Systems Theory Community of Practice. This will run once a month on the 2nd Monday of each month from 7 to 8:30 PM Eastern time, beginning on October 12th. It's a free community of practice. Each month we'll dig deep into one aspect of Family Systems Theory and have an opportunity for question and answer and community discussion. You can find more information and sign up at the link in the show notes. And finally, if you are new to this podcast, you can connect with me at jack@christian-leaders.com with your questions, comments, and suggestions for future episodes.

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And you can get more resources at thenonanxiousleader.com where you can find out about my coaching practice, speaking engagements, books that I've written, and courses that I offer. You can also subscribe to my Two for Tuesday email newsletter and get your free AI family systems coach at the website or at the links in the show notes. Finally, if you would like to support my work for as little as $5 a month, you can get more information and sign up at the link in the show notes. Thanks in advance for your cooperation.

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I had fully planned to produce an episode on dealing with interlocking triangles this week, but things got in the way, and so I'm doing a rebroadcast. I will come back with that in the next week or two. So now, without further ado, here is episode 398, a rebroadcast of 3 Steps to Taking Responsibility for Self When Others Refuse to Do the Same. 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 Non-Anxious Leader Network. So Holly has been working on her own ability to be a non-anxious presence. And 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.

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This type of blaming and not taking responsibility for self in response to one's own differentiation is sabotage. And one paradox is that sabotage is likely to occur when the leader is functioning at their best, that is when they're taking responsibility for self. And as Holly notes, this often is an unconscious response, or I would say an automatic and mindless resistance, an automatic and mindless response. According to Edwin Friedman, 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, and 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 yourself, what inside of me annoys or scares me and increases my anxiety when people don't take responsibility for self?

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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. 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. Friedman 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.

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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 3rd 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. Friedman 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. And 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. And that tends to be what our intuition intuitive response is, what our instinctive response is.

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But this is the leverage 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 2 benefits to paradox. First, it helps you to manage your own anxious responses by helping you avoid a conflict of wills. 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, and so remind yourself that you can't be responsible for others and their responses. In Generation to Generation, Friedman 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.

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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. 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're 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.

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Remember that the best you can hope for is to get it right 50% of the time. And remember that preparation and reflection are critical. Do your best to anticipate the sabotage and prepare some possible responses in advance. 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.

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That's it for episode 398. Remember, you can connect with me at jack@christian-leaders.com, and you can find more resources at thenonanxiousleader.com. And if you found this episode helpful, please share it with someone who would benefit, and please leave a review on your podcast platform of choice.

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Thanks in advance for your help. Until next time, go be yourself.