Edwin Friedman
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Search complete. 10 mentions across 10 episodes found for "Edwin Friedman".
Nov 3, 2026
Seth HartHOST
through which you work.
Greg RobinsonGUEST
Probably the writer that's had the most influence on me trying to understand leadership and maturity and the term out of family systems theory is self-differentiation is Edwin Friedman's book, A Failure of Nerve, Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix.
Greg RobinsonGUEST
I think you got to read that one.
Greg RobinsonGUEST
So start there, then come see me.
Jack ShatamaHOST
Suddenly, their problem has become your problem.
Jack ShatamaHOST
And, as Edwin Friedman said, nobody gets the problem they can handle.
Jack ShatamaHOST
If they could handle it, it wouldn't be a problem.
Jack ShatamaHOST
In family systems terms, this is over-functioning, and over-functioning is always relational.
Benjamin ShanksHOST
And I'm like, oh, I'm not a peacemaker.
Benjamin ShanksHOST
I am what the psychologist Edwin Friedman calls a peacemonger.
Benjamin ShanksHOST
Not a warmonger, a peacemonger.
Benjamin ShanksHOST
He says this in the best book on leadership you'll ever read.
Jack ShatamaHOST
Even though you might think your role is to tell people what to do, it's really to inspire them even as you give them the freedom to not follow.
Jack ShatamaHOST
The same is true for parenting, or as Edwin Friedman quips in A Failure of Nerve, this applies to parents and presidents.
Jack ShatamaHOST
So what is a parent or president supposed to do when they find that their child or someone they lead is annoyed by them? HACS offers four suggestions that I think are very helpful, especially when understood in family systems terms.
Jack ShatamaHOST
The first is to take every age-appropriate opportunity to back off and let the kids be themselves.
Michael BerryHOST
But talk to me about how you got into this.
Joe RigneyGUEST
Yeah, I was teaching classes on leadership at a Christian college, and I read a book by a Jewish rabbi named Edwin Friedman, a book called A Failure of Nerve.
Joe RigneyGUEST
And he talked a lot.
Joe RigneyGUEST
It's the basis.
Caitlin BarnesGUEST
Trust in and of itself is a witness to an anxious world.
Caitlin BarnesGUEST
And so you and I as people of God are called to be what Edwin Friedman called a non-anxious presence.
Caitlin BarnesGUEST
So in a culture of fear and polarization and discontent, peaceful presence begs a question.
Caitlin BarnesGUEST
Why aren't you afraid? Why are you the way that you are? So how do we become these kinds of people? Well, the Apostle Paul explains that this isn't a technique, but a fruit that is produced by the Holy Spirit.
Craig GuntripHOST
James tells us, he says, this is what it means to be deceived.
Craig GuntripHOST
have all this information and not doing anything with it there is obedience required of us with what we know and what we understand and what we've been told and Edwin Friedman who is a theologian and a family therapist has this great quote he says the colossal misunderstanding of our time is the assumption that insight will work with people who are unmotivated to change We can't become that in church.
Craig GuntripHOST
We can't become people that have all this insight, but we really never have a desire to change.
Craig GuntripHOST
The Jewish people that Paul was so desperate to see transformed that he's speaking to and about in Romans chapter 9, they never lacked information.
Jack ShatamaHOST
The main takeaway here is showing what it means to manage your own anxiety instead of relying on others to help you.
Jack ShatamaHOST
Or as Edwin Friedman would say, "Knowing where you end and others begin." Before Smith describes what it means to captain your own ship, she describes the opposite, that is, involving others to help you manage your own anxiety.
Jack ShatamaHOST
So what does this look like? One way we displace our anxiety on others is to worry about someone else and/or to try to fix them.
Jack ShatamaHOST
Related to this is over-functioning.
Vanessa BennettHOST
Even if I'm not working with a di-- a couple or a, or a family system, right? I, I see it in individuals, and I'm always curious, like, when I see a massive swing like that, I'm curious ab- about the motivation.
Vanessa BennettHOST
So when I was doing research around this episode, I came across this person named Edwin Friedman, okay? And Edwin Friedman spent decades applying Bowen's system, right, to leadership.
Vanessa BennettHOST
So again, like I said, a lot of Bowen's work has then been kind of expanded out, but leadership and family dynamics, and made a distinction that when I found it, I was like, "Oh, I wanna bring it into this, this conversation." So he differentiated between change that is reactive, right? So change that's driven by, like, anxiety, fear of consequences, the need to manage maybe a perceived threat, and change that is self-directed, okay? Which is change that emerges when a person has genuinely looked at themselves and decided, "I want to be different." Not because of this person, not to save this relationship, right, but because I can't honestly live any other way.
Vanessa BennettHOST
James Hollis, who I've mentioned a few times, Hollis also framed it very similarly in his work.
Natalie HoffmanHOST
But up until now, these three have made the most impact, and by that I mean that who I am today and how I think and feel and show up for my life is very, very different from who I was 20 years ago because of these three books.
Natalie HoffmanHOST
So in episode 389, I shared my first book, which is A Failure of Nerve by Edwin Friedman.
Natalie HoffmanHOST
It is so incredible that I decided to take my Flying Higher mentorship group through it in October, November, and December.
Natalie HoffmanHOST
And if you're interested in joining us, go to joinflyinghigher.com.