Freidman's Leadership Model

The Leadership Model
Friedman's Leadership Model has six major components:

1. Self-differentiation
This has an internal and an external dimension. You work on what you believe and you let others know where you stand. Defining self, rather than overfunctioning, becomes your new way of being a "strong leader." You are always working on Self.

2. Staying connected
The key is being well-differentiated AND in touch with your followers. The central dilemma for leaders is how do we get close and maintain self?

3. Non-reactive
All or most of your "hot buttons" are disconnected.

4. Non-anxious presence
Your presence in a system has a calming influence on the emotional processes in the system. You can break, like an electrical transformer, the transmission of anxiety throughout the system.

5. Managing triangles
The triangle is the basic building block, the molecule, for any system of people -- the smallest stable relationship system. The human dyad is so unstable that when two people who are important to each other develop a problem, which we invariably do, we automatically look around for a third person to include in the anxious situation in some way. We often invite triangulation and we have to be careful about that. In our daily conversation, how long do we go before we start talking about a person not present? From the A corner of a triangle, you know you can't change the relationship between B and C.

6. Persistence in the face of sabotage
You know that when a leader takes initiative, he or she will meet resistance. You are prepared for that when it comes and are ready to keep plugging away.

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Overfunctioning
Here is a summary of my 10/24 class comments related to overfunctioning-underfunctioning reciprocity.

A basic premise in family systems thinking is that each person in a system plays a role in the functioning of the others in the system. Any change in the emotional functioning of one person in the system changes the emotional functioning of others in the system. Haven't you observed this in your own family? Take a minute and think about the implications of this principle for your role in your family, your cohort, and your workplace.

I had never heard of the word "overfunctioning" until I met Ed Friedman. He equated "overfunctioning" with "strong leadership," pointing out to me that "when someone is overfunctioning in a system, someone else is underfunctioning!" This reciprocity is simply the way emotional systems work. This can be true in a family, a cohort, a classroom, an organization, a workplace, etc. Overfunctioning is where a lot of leaders get their stress. (One of my observations about education is that a lot of teachers become trapped by their overfunctioning and then wonder why they have students with an "I dare you to teach me anything" attitude.)

When we overfunction, we unintentionally bring about learned helpless. In a school setting, for example, a principal may see teachers (and teachers may see students) who look like they don't care and don't want responsibility. That causes us to overfunction more, and the dance goes on. A vicious cycle between overfunctioning and learned helplessness.

When we try to get others to be more responsible, we are actually taking on more responsibility. There are many people whose real need is to not have their needs met. Do you get my drift?

Overfunctioners tend to think they know best. They can't make others more responsible, but they can make themselves less responsible. Friedman suggests, "Don't delegate responsibility; delegate anxiety by being less responsible." (Underfunctioners will take more responsibility and do their job only if and when they begin to feel anxious about it being done.)

Will this work? Will the workers step up and take more responsibility? Probably not at first. Things will probably get worse before they get better. Expect a flurry of protests to "change back" to the way you were. The trick is can we get comfortable with our own anxiety when others don't take responsibility? Can we wait em out? Can we (as parents, teachers, leaders) break the cycle between overfunctioning and learned helplessness? If not we will have to accept the stress and lack of change that goes with our overfunctioning.