Fr. Thomas Reeves

“(I eventually came to define my marriage counseling, no matter what the cultural mix, as trying to help people separate so that they would not have to “separate.”)”
― Edwin H. Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix

“I want to stress that by well-differentiated leader I do not mean an autocrat who tells others what to do or orders them around, although any leader who defines himself or herself clearly may be perceived that way by those who are not taking responsibility for their own emotional being and destiny. Rather, I mean someone who has clarity about his or her own life goals, and, therefore, someone who is less likely to become lost in the anxious emotional processes swirling about. I mean someone who can be separate while still remaining connected, and therefore can maintain a modifying, non-anxious, and sometimes challenging presence. I mean someone who can manage his or her own reactivity to the automatic reactivity of others, and therefore be able to take stands at the risk of displeasing.”
― Edwin H. Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix

“A major criterion for judging the anxiety level of any society is the loss of its capacity to be playful.”
― Edwin H. Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix

“Leadership through self-differentiation is not easy; learning techniques and imbibing data are far easier. Nor is striving or achieving success as a leader without pain: there is the pain of isolation, the pain of loneliness, the pain of personal attacks, the pain of losing friends. That’s what leadership is all about.”
― Edwin H. Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix