Lightning
DepositPhotos Image Courtesy of Jack Shitama
It’s good to be a lightning rod. * It’s better than being a drain trap.
If you’ve ever looked under your sink, you’ve seen a drain trap (also known as a p-trap). The u-shaped bend in the trap holds enough water to create a seal that prevents sewer gases from wafting back into your house.
In Generation to Generation, Edwin Friedman uses the metaphor of a drain trap to describe a person who functions as an “anxiety trap” for the system. By adapting to the pressures of others she is able to keep the “noxious fumes” of anxiety from making everybody’s life miserable. This is extremely stressful.
However, if she decides to “straighten out” and stop taking everybody’s “crap,” then people have to deal with their own anxiety and their own noxious fumes. She will be better off, but they will not be happy. They’re likely to press even harder for her to go back to taking their “crap.” If she can maintain a non-anxious presence during the pushback, they will (at some point) realize that they’re going to either have to deal with their own anxiety (“crap”) or find another drain trap.
A leader who tries to please everyone is like a drain trap. Instead of helping people take responsibility for their own anxiety, she overfunctions and adapts to the stress and anxiety of others. Over time this becomes so stressful and difficult to maintain that getting overwhelmed and burned out are hard to avoid.
It’s better to be a lightning rod. A lightning rod attracts these dangerous bolts of energy and sends them harmlessly into the ground.
This is what a non-anxious leader does. By remaining a non-anxious presence, even in the most anxious situations, a leader can help dissipate anxious energy in the system to prevent it from being harmful. Unlike a trap, which must hold the noxious gases within it to be effective, a lightning rod is at its best when energy flows through it.
When you are a non-anxious presence, anxious energy that is directed at you is received. However, you don’t amplify that energy by getting defensive or by arguing. Neither do you allow that energy to remain trapped in you by adapting to the pressure the other is creating.
Instead, you allow the energy to flow through you and out of you so that the situation can calm down. This is difficult stuff, but it is much easier than retaining the anxiety of others in the system.
A lightning rod that is not grounded doesn’t work. Any energy it attracts will find it’s way into the house, damaging equipment and possibly starting a fire. When you are grounded in your own beliefs AND in caring relationships with others in the system, you can do your best work.
A drain trap allows others’ beliefs to supersede her own. A lightning rod is connected to self and others in a way that enables her to be a non-anxious presence. She doesn’t disconnect from others, just because they are anxious. It’s the very act of remaining connected that enables her to dissipate anxiety in the system.
Both a drain trap and a lightning rod protect the house (system). Which would you rather be?
*A special thanks to Dr. Brian Ivory who provided the basis for this concept.