Keeping Focus While Emotions Run Amok

By Charles Scott
Edwin Friedman wrote in “A Failure of Nerve” that most organizations adapt toward weakness rather than strength. His thesis is that the leveraging power of the unmotivated lessens the influence of the visionary. A Biblical example is found in Numbers 13 – two men of vision return with a positive report of the Promised Land and the faith to state, “Let us go up at once and possess it, we are well able to overcome it.” In the terms of Friedman, those without vision or the “recalcitrant” won the debate, and with a grasshopper view, the people of God were limited from the possession of a land flowing with milk and honey.

Friedman takes the position that leadership is essentially an “emotional process” instead of being a “cognitive phenomenon.” It is easy to provide examples of how emotions rule over an organization rather than logic and truth.

Friedman proposes that the leader is the answer. His first concept is that the leader must have clarity about their personal goals. According to Friedman this clarity allows the leader to remain focused while others are lost in the swirl of emotional anxiety. At this point the leader becomes able to withstand the emotional roller coaster rides of people in general and an organization as a whole. The leader cannot become subject to the nature of human emotional processes.

Again we see Jesus as the perfect example of this type of leadership. When Peter receives a heavenly revelation, Jesus pronounces Peter as “blessed” yet when Peter rebukes the mention of death and resurrection, Jesus tells Peter that he is an “offense.” (Matthew 16:13-28) Leaders must never allow emotions to rule over truth. The truth will make us free. (John 8:32)