Conference leaders learn to be 'non-anxious presence'
As rates of stress and anxiety grow across the United States, members of the Baltimore-Washington and Peninsula-Delaware Conferences are learning about how to serve as a non-anxious presence in their congregations and communities.
The course revolves around the family systems theory on leadership that inspired the Rev. Jack Shitama to write and teach about non-anxious leadership practices. The director of the conference’s Center for Vital Leadership, Shitama has become one of the acknowledged experts in leadership within the denomination. He first heard of family systems theory in a pastoral care and counseling course during seminary in 1991.
“I came across this idea that when a leader is able to lead as a non-anxious presence, they can actually be their most effective,” Shitama said. “And so then I immediately was attracted to that idea. I dug deep into it.”
Shitama wanted to emphasize that his references about “anxiousness” are related to everyday stressors, not clinical anxiety or mental health issues.
The family system, or relationship systems as the Rev. Shitama refers to it, was first theorized by Edwin Friedman in his book “Generation to Generation: Family Process in Church in Synagogue.” The Rev. Shitama built the concept of non-anxious leadership from Friedman’s initial theory and pulled out what he thinks is the most important characteristic for leaders: non-anxiousness
Previous course takers hailed the course as instrumental in helping them navigate leadership in a non-anxious lens.
“As a result of self-examination in light of self-differentiation and triangulation, I was able to be effective in managing myself as non-anxious and clear in direction,” one reviewer wrote of the Rev. Shitama’s course.
Family systems theory focuses on a concept called “togetherness pressure” — a desire to have an emotional connection with those in your family or circle. That same type of concept can be used within the congregational system of churches — or businesses and non-profit organizations for that matter.
However, togetherness pressure can get people into tricky situations, Shitama said.
Togetherness pressure can have two extremes. An individual can become smothered when that pressure grows too great and the individual can not be themselves, where cultural norms smother individuality. On the other hand, when togetherness pressure is too weak, an individual only comes to care about their desires, goals and values.
“If you're not able to actually be connected in healthy ways to others in the family or in the organization or the congregation, then you're going to kind of be out there on your own and you actually ended up being a narcissist,” Shitama said.
Togetherness and individuality must be held in tension, he said. One can not overpower the other. Otherwise, unhealthy relationship and leadership structures could begin to take root.
“Healthy leaders, non-anxious leaders say what they believe, while giving others the freedom to disagree,” Shitama said. “When you do that, what you're saying is ‘I care about you. I want to be emotionally connected to you. So that we don't have to agree.”
Shitama acknowledged that such a concept could be viewed as radical by some people. According to the latest studies, that comes as no surprise. The social landscape in the United States is deeply divided.
Large swaths of both political parties view each other as unintelligent, unpatriotic and immoral, according to the Pew Research Center. The American Psychological Association found inflation led the vast majority of adults to hold stress over their financial prospects, including paying for their basic needs. Anxiousness was only exasperated during the pandemic.
But there’s also anxiety around the future of the denomination — and mainline Protestantism as a whole. With churches leaving, membership declining and resources tightening, anxiety about the uncertainty of the future requires leaders that are able to regulate and lead as a non-anxious voice.
“There's that desire to move forward and find a healthy future,” Shitama said. “If people want to do that, they have to learn how to lead as a non-anxious presence. If leaders want to affect positive change, they've had to be able to lead as a non-anxious presence via a non-anxious leader.”
“We all have anxiety. Being a non-anxious presence doesn't mean we don't feel anxious inside. It just means that we regulate it in a way that we can have healthy conversations with people, we can present ourselves as calming influences, as opposed to somebody who just keeps this in the cycle of anxiety going on,” he added.
The four-week course, which goes from Oct. 9 to Nov. 5, is free to lay and clergy members in the Baltimore-Washington and Peninsula-Delaware annual conferences.