The Well-Differentiated Leader – Part 1

What differentiates companies and teams whose people work together to achieve their mission from those who don’t? Why are most organizations stuck while a minority avoid the mud altogether?

In digital product development, to create something valuable and lasting, requires a team. There’s too much work to do and it’s sufficiently complex that no one I know is specialized enough to do it all themselves. And yet, this ability today for teams and organizations to generate and sustain progress is rare.

Why is this? I believe it’s because we’ve been looking for answers in the wrong places.

In a frantic effort to get ahead, leaders are quick to turn to the latest methodology or technique. 4DX. OKR. Gazelles. Lean Startup. When the current methodology fails to deliver, what do most leaders do? Of course, they shop for a new one. Rarely do they pause to consider that the problem might not be with the technique, but their organizational faults they are looking for the technique to overcome. So they stay on the merry go round, and for those of us who have experienced this, life is anything but merry.

If we only had more data, or the right technique, or if our employees had more autonomy, mastery, and purpose, we could make better decisions, get to the destination faster, and motivate people to make it happen.

In his book, “A Failure of Nerve”, Edwin Friedman argues that leadership isn’t about needing more data, it’s about maturity. It isn’t about technique, it’s about having the stamina needed to stay the course, and it isn’t about empathy, it’s about taking personal responsibility and encouraging others to do the same.

In my experience, no project I’ve been a part of has failed because we couldn’t figure out the technology, or we couldn’t generate the investment, or even that we weren’t nice or empathic enough to each other. It’s always been about leadership, and specifically a failure of nerve among leaders when it comes to the hard work of leading—of living with and leading in a healthy way the organization itself, taking principled stances, making decisions that are sometimes unpopular, and not allowing the immature and subversive to take the organization hostage. This, Friedman calls, “the well-differentiated leader”.

Getting unstuck requires shifting our orientation to the way we think about relationships, from one that focuses on techniques that motivate others to one that focuses on the leader’s own presence and being.

This applies not only to businesses, but to all human-relational systems, be it families, friendships, non-profits, and churches.

There is nothing more central to the health and progress of any organization than the emotional maturity of its leader(s). Without well differentiated leadership, even the most gifted leaders burn out and the most dynamic organizations swirl out of control.

Becoming a well-differentiated leader has two immense benefits: the benefit of greater clarity, and the benefit of greater effectiveness.

In this article, we’ll focus on the benefit of greater clarity. In part two, we’ll discuss the benefit of greater effectiveness.

The first benefit is the ability to see clearly what is going on. Before you can do something about a problem, you have to understand what it is, and where possible, the cause-and-effect relationships driving the problem that lie below the surface.

Let’s go deeper on this idea of a well-differentiated leader and explore the concept of differentiation.

Differentiation is the ability to remain connected in relationship to significant people in our lives and yet not have our reactions and behavior determined by them. Differentiation deals with the effort to define yourself, to control yourself, to become a more responsible person, and to permit others to be themselves as well.

The big idea is that organizational progress is the result of the differentiation, or emotional maturity, of its leaders, who must lead companies characterized by the presence of anxiety (emotional immaturity) among its people (all of them, leaders included).

Leaders, an undue focus on changing the behavior of others is a fool’s errand. The way you are most likely to create the change you want is to focus not on others but on yourself. This is the path you must travel toward differentiation. However, the path is wrought with anxiety.

Since you probably weren’t expecting me to talk about anxiety in a article about leadership, let’s unpack what drives anxiety in individuals:

Ever wonder why certain people or situations just trigger you? Whenever people feel threatened or under attack, the emotional system begins to get out of control. The threat may not even appear particularly dangerous. It could just be a feeling people have when they are not getting what they wanted or expected from others or from their lives.

The sense of being under attack often has to do with people’s perceptions, which are based on their life experiences over many years. They tend to interpret present-day experiences in terms of those historical experiences. Because these historical experiences are so powerful, they tend to control our current functioning. 1

Anxiety can be acute— experienced in ways that make its presence unmistakable to us. But most of our everyday, or chronic, anxiety happens beyond our awareness, so that we are not conscious of how much it controls our functioning. 2

The issues over which chronically anxious systems become concerned are more likely to be the focus of their anxiety rather than its cause.” 3

When teams get fixed on their symptoms rather than on the emotional processes that keep those symptoms chronic, they will recycle their problems perpetually no matter what technical changes they make, how much advice they receive from experts, or how hard they try to understand their symptoms. 4

The more systemic chronic anxiety becomes in any “family,” the more likely that relationship system is to stay oriented toward its symptoms, or more likely it is to engage in external crises or struggles , as a way to avoid facing the emotional processes that are driving that “family” to become symptomatic. 5

Unhealthy emotional systems are marked by reactivity. The focus is on the latest, most immediate crisis (drama). Reality TV.

A well-differentiated leader doesn’t react to other people’s reactions; he or she is a calm, steady presence.

Unhealthy emotional systems are marked by blame displacement… It’s not my fault. The refusal to look inward, displays of anger, criticism, and blame indicates a refusal to take responsibility, which only heightens the overall anxiety. (The greater the focus is on another person as the “root” issue or the “focus” of the problem, the greater the likelihood that the issue is a refusal to address or focus on self. What is tragic is our blame, anger and criticism signals how much power we have allowed another person to have over us.)

A well-differentiated leader takes responsibility for himself and leads others to do the same.

Unhealthy emotional systems are marked by a quick-fix mentality; relief from pain is more important than lasting change. This is evidenced by a low threshold for pain that constantly seeks symptom relief.

The fact that emotional processes/patterns continue, return or are passed on for generations suggest that quick fixes do little to change organizations or people. New insights, more compassion, longer conversations or better communication strategies may alleviate the presenting issue for a while, but does nothing about the more important, underlying anxiety. The reason is because the anxiety resides within the person. It has nothing do with the problem, which is merely the presenting issue. The issue can be addressed, but in time the anxiety will migrate to another presenting issue.

A well-differentiated leader realizes that true long-term change requires discomfort, and he or she is willing to lead others through discomfort toward change.

Unhealthy emotional systems are marked by a herding instinct. When the forces for togetherness triumph over the forces for individuality and move everyone to adapt to the least mature members.

A well-differentiated leader has a strong sense of self and can effectively separate while remaining connected.

Unhealthy emotional systems are marked by poorly defined leadership. We allow ourselves to get caught up in triangles.

A well-differentiated leader takes decisive stands at the risk of displeasing others.

In Part 2, we will discuss what to do as a leader when faced with an organizational culture characterized by chronic anxiety.