I wanted to follow up one of my last posts to provide some explanation for something that on the face would have been hard to understand and appreciate. And if you stop by this blog from time to time, I’ll reference Friedman and his thoughts and this is a good distinction to make if you’re new to Friedman or the systems world.
I quoted an Edwin Friedman quote where he was denigrating leadership that preferred empathy over responsibility. In Friedman’s literature and theory, empathy is toxic – as he defines it.
How can empathy be bad? After all, it’s one of the five characteristics or character qualities that author Daniel Goleman ascribed to “Emotional Intelligence.”
Friedman’s concept of empathy is equivalent to more of what is often referred to as co-dependence, or the kind of “care” that has no boundaries and in which one person loses their “self” to someone else’s unregulated irresponsibility. That is the essence of what he deems to be at the heart of society’s struggles and he coins the phenomena “A Failure of Nerve” and wrote a fantastic book by that title, which is a must-read.
So Friedman is not against love and compassion, but against behaviors and action that undermines self and responsibility. And I would add that Friedman’s and Goleman’s thoughts are compatible in that they emphasize self-regulation and responsibility as essential for mature and healthy functioning. You can download this pdf of some more extended thoughts and writing I’ve done in this area.
Hope that distinction is helpful moving forward.
