Edwin Friedman

Edwin Howard Friedman (May 17, 1932[1] – October 31, 1996[2]) was an ordained rabbi, family therapist, and leadership consultant.

[3] He was born in New York City and worked for more than 35 years in the Washington, D.C., area, where he founded the Bethesda Jewish Congregation.

His seminal work Generation to Generation, written for the leaders of religious congregations, focused on leaders developing three main areas of themselves: His contribution to intercultural communication and understanding in family therapy appears in a key essay, "The Myth of the Shiksa" (original 1982, collected 2008),[5] using the concept of "cultural costume and camouflage" to describe the ways that people express their ethnic or cultural identity.

Friedman attacks what he calls the failure of nerve in leaders who are “highly anxious risk-avoiders,” more concerned with good feelings than with progress–one whose life revolves around the axis of consensus.

In other places, Friedman argues that the well-differentiated leader: ...is not 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... is 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.... is someone who can separate while still remaining connected, and therefore can maintain a modifying, non-anxious, and sometimes challenging presence... is 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.