Peacemongers

I think people have heard me talk about this before. I read about 15 books at a time and finish about 100/year. Nothing to boast about. I am just that ADD. Recently I have been working through A Failure of Nerve by Edwin Friedman.

Freidman was a Rabbi turned family psychologist. He began to be sought after for his application of family therapy to “bigger” families—organizations. If his assumptions are true, our understanding of leadership would be deeply impacted.

Here is a quote. Let me know what you think.

In any type of institution whatsoever, when a self-directed, imaginative, energetic, or creative member is being consistently frustrated and sabotaged rather than encouraged and supported, what will turn out to be true one hundred percent of the time, regardless of whether the disrupters are supervisors, subordinates, or peers, is tha the person at the very top of that institution is a peace-monger. By that I mean a highly anxious risk-avoider, someone who is more concerned with good feelings than with progress, someone whose life revolves around the axis of consensus, a “middler,” someone who is so incapable of taking well-defined stands that his “disability” seems to be genetic, someone who functions as if she had been filleted of her backbone, someone who treats conflict or anxiety like mustard gas—one whiff, on goes the emotional gas mask, and he flits. Such leaders are often “nice,” if not charming. (Failure of Nerve, 14)

What is the difference between a peacemonger and a peacemaker? I have some partially formed ideas . . . but what do you think?