The National Anthem, Kneeling and Leadership through Self-Differentiation

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Washington Football Team head coach, Ron Rivera is in a difficult situation. He’s a person of color so he’s experienced racism in our country firsthand. His father had a 32-year career in the army, and Rivera was raised on military bases throughout Europe, Central America and the U.S. He understands what it means to serve our country.

As the NFL season is starting, Rivera needs to decide how he will respond to the prospect of players kneeling during the national anthem. As the leader of, he not only needs to do this personally, but also decide how he will address his team. More on that in a minute.

Edwin Friedman suggested the best way to find out who is self-differentiated in a congregation is to preach a sermon on a controversial topic while taking a non-anxious emotional stand. The important thing is to say what you believe while giving others the freedom to disagree.

A few of my favorite ways to do this are to say, “I may be wrong about this but this is what I believe.“ Or, “You don’t have to agree with me, but this is what I believe.”

Notice the topic can be anything. This is about emotional process. As a leader, your primary task is to model taking responsibility for self. In taking a self-differentiated stand on a hot topic you model this for others.

After preaching your controversial sermon, notice who defines themselves and who defines you or other people. Better differentiated people define themselves, whether they agree or disagree. For example someone who is higher on the scale of self-differentiation, but disagrees might say, “Pastor I hear what you’re saying but I don’t agree with you and here’s why.”

Lesser differentiated people will define or blame others. For example, “People like you are ruining our country.“

They don’t even have to disagree with you to signal that they are less differentiated. You might receive an adoring response such as, “I’m so glad we have a leader like you to show us the way of truth.” When people define themselves by their relationship to the pastor and put her on a pedestal watch out. They may be supportive now, but because they are not as well differentiated, they can turn on the pastor in a second.

Side note: you can also do this in your family of origin, just for fun. You probably already know who is better or less differentiated, but this can confirm your intuition.

Leadership through self-differentiation is the ability to say what you believe in a healthy way, while staying connected emotionally to the most anxious and resistant in the system. It balances the tension between adhering to your own goals and values, and the need to stay in touch with those you lead, especially the resistant ones.

Back to Rivera. He did two things that signaled he knows how to lead through self-differentiation.

First, he stated his own position. In late August Rivera revealed that he will stand during the national anthem, kneel during the coin toss and don the initials “JL” on his hat in memory of John Lewis. The point is not what he decided, but THAT he decided and he did it early. Rather than keeping his players in suspense, he took a stand.

Further, he did so in a non-anxious way. He said, “I’m going to make sure that my message that I have will be during the coin toss. For anybody that disagrees with me, well, I’m sorry, but it’s my right.”

“I’m not going to kneel (during the anthem), because my father served in the military,” Rivera explained. “My brother was a first responder. My wife’s family was in the military. My dad had brothers that served in World War II. So, to me, standing at attention is what I’m going to do. That’s how I’m going to honor them.”

But he also emphasized that his players have the right to kneel. He said, “I will respect your First Amendment right. If that’s what you’re going to do during the national anthem, then so be it. But I will stand.”

Rivera is a non-anxious leader.

More importantly, he understands that the most important thing he can do is to model this for the system he leads. He understands that a healthy system is not about everyone agreeing. It’s about being able to express your own beliefs while respecting the differing beliefs of others. When asked about it this week, he responded:

“It’s funny because people say, ‘Oh you should all kneel together, or you shouldn’t kneel, because it doesn’t show team unity.’ Well, I think that’s wrong. I think if half your team kneels and half your team stands and everybody respects that, that’s team unity. That to me really is. Because I am mature enough to respect your right as an American, the first amendment, to kneel, and please respect my right to stand. … The world is about compromise. It’s about respect. And if you don’t respect the person’s right, then you’re not respecting the first amendment. That’s the way I approach it.”

Football is just a game. Professional football is a business. All of us can learn from leaders like Ron Rivera.

The Rev. Jack Shitama serves as executive director of Pecometh Camp & Retreat Ministries in Maryland.  This post is republished with permission from his blog The Non-Anxious Leader.