A Failure of Nerve -- Chapter 8
The Power of Presence
the physician will always have more success if he or she can promote the organism's own natural capacity to win and natural will to survive.
Most parents, managers, and mentors have not learned this lesson. They believe they can teach, motivate, and inculcate values in their charges simply be exerting enough will.
The factor that is almost always present in relationship systems that are deeply disturbed is will conflict.
Will-conflict is always present in the failure of teachers, counselors, clergy, and consultants to make headway against the riptides of resistance that run counter to their intent.
One can go with the flow and still take the lead by positioning oneself in such a way that the natural forces of emotional life carry you in the right direction.
The key to that positioning is the leader's own self-differentiation.
Power does not reside in a leader's physical or economic strength but in the nature of the leader's own being and even when leaders are entitled to great power by dint of their office, it is ultimately the nature of their presence that is the source of their real strength.
Part of the difficulty in making the conceptual leap from action to presence is that all leaders, parents, or presidents have been trained to do (or fix) something.
| Emotional processes are more powerful than ideas. |
| Modifying emotional processes cannot be done with method and technique. |
| Self-differentiation is not selfish. |
| Committing oneself to this approach requires nerve. |
| To the extent that any of this is accurate, it is accurate for all. |
| Triangles |
| Regression -- chronic anxiety: reactivity, herding, etc. |
| Empathy |
| Ethical self |
| Feeds back to reducing the anxiety that undercuts leadership |
All communication depends on three emotional variables: direction, distance, and anxiety.
Friedman, E. H. A failure of nerve: Leadership in the age of the quick fix.