I’ve long admired Edwin Friedman’s coined phrase “peace-monger.” It refers to the war-like destruction that spineless and people pleasing leaders create in their communities through their “failure of nerve.”
Here’s one of the most awesome segments of Friedman’s writing I’ve come across yet in what I’ve read of his.
“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 that 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.”
A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix, pg. 13-14
There’s not enough space on this blog to emphasis how true this is. This captures so much of what I’ve observed and experienced in ministry as well as in other arenas (or systems). Peace-mongering is epidemic in today’s culture as false harmony and good feelings win out over progress and integrity.
For more see my post on Friedman’s thesis in this book.
