Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 158.4
EAN: 9781596270428
ISBN: 159627042X
Label: Seabury Books
Manufacturer: Seabury Books
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 260
Publication Date: 2007-02
Publisher: Seabury Books
Sales Rank: 7406
Studio: Seabury Books

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Editorial Review:

Product Description:
Ten years after his death, Edwin Friedman's insights into leadership are more urgently needed than ever. He was the first to tell us that all organizations have personalities, like families, and to apply the insights of family therapy to churches and synagogues, rectors and rabbis, politicians and teachers.
Failure of Nerve is essential reading for all leaders, be they parents or presidents, corporate executives or educators, religious superiors or coaches, healers or generals, managers or clergy.

Friedman's insights about our regressed, "seatbelt society," oriented toward safety rather than adventure, help explain the sabotage that leaders constantly face today. Suspicious of the "quick fixes" and instant solutions that sweep through our culture only to give way to the next fad, he argues for strength and self-differentiation as the marks of true leadership. His formula for success is more maturity, not more data; stamina, not technique; and personal responsibility, not empathy.

This book was unfinished at the time of Friedman's death, and originally published in a limited edition. This new edition makes his life-changing insights and challenges to a new generation of readers.






Rating: - The unfinished symphony of a leader
Rabbi Ed Friedman was a groundbreaking scholar in applying Bowen Family Systems Theory to religious worshiping communities (churches and synagogues). "A Failure of Nerve" was to be the capstone of his lifetime work in leading congregations (as a rabbi), consulting congregations and businesses, community relations, teaching, and writing. Sadly, Ed Friedman died before he could finish "A Failure of Nerve." However, his children and colleagues collaborated in bringing this work to publication anyway ... Read More

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Rating: - Family Systems applied to the culture
Friedman is not rehashing old work here. This is a new application of the Bowen Family Systems work as applied to leadership within the culture. I think his insights on anxiety in the culture are right on, and as always there is more hope where there is more understanding.
I recommend this to book to preachers, teachers, writers and analysts because these insights are distinctive and helpful.

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Rating: - Explains what's wrong quite well
After reading this book, I am now clear on why I am so frustrated with corporate and non-profit companies in the US. It's excellent and I plan to use it in my consulting practice - I've ordered copies for my clients!

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Rating: - Insightful and Different
I found Friedman's work very interesting and insightful. I am a parent and manager, so the concept of leadership is important to me. He puts his sometimes radical concepts into easy to digest sections, without watering in down at all. This is not your average management mumbo-jumbo, step-by-step, how to book.

At times it reads like a textbook, and some of his analogies with scientific discovery and history are long-winded, but all in all this was a book that made me think differently ... Read More

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Rating: - Adventuresome Leadership
A Failure of Nerve presents a unique approach on leadership among the books I have read on the topic. Friedman concentrates on several themes throughout the book that combine lessons learned from decades of experience and research.

The themes include the necessity of a sense of adventure and the possession of courage in leaders, the importance of self-differentiation, focusing on strengths instead of catering to weaknesses, the destructive nature of relationship triangles and the challenges ... Read More

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