Kaufaman described Friedman’s theory of self differentiation as knowing where one ends and another begins (Alex Kaufaman, 2013). We form ourselves into groups, for example groups such as families, companies, and even nations (Alex Kaufaman, 2013). Alex Kaufaman stated that when you are a self differentiated person you don’t have to lose yourself to the family, the company or the nation that you are a part of, instead self differentiated people understand how to keep their own identity (2013). A great example, to me, that is separate from Alex’s approach, is motherhood. A woman becomes a mother and suddenly in the trope of motherhood she defines everything she does around her child. After a few months or even years the mother realizes she’s not just a mom and she still has things she loves to do and a personality outside of her child.
Continuing on with Friedman’s theory, there are poorly self differentiated people. Poorly self-differentiated people do lose themselves within groups and take on anxiety, emotional stress, and baggage (Alex Kaufaman, 2013). This type of behavior leads to something called an emotional triangle, for example in the public education setting a teacher may be upset and experiencing anxiety about something professionally and it leads to gossip. The teacher is in search of a colleague or colleagues to rope in and vent to in hopes the colleagues agree to being upset and anxious over the same situation too, lessening the anxiety that the original teacher felt, but now the others don’t feel any better themselves. There’s a question to ask here. When you gossip and share your own anxiety with others, does it really make the problem go away? The answer should be no! Do not get stuck in someone else’s problem.
Being a self differentiated leader instead of a poorly self differentiated leader enables you to avoid being triangled. Self-differentiated leaders resist contributing to the gossip, they resist taking on the anxiety, and this leads to influencing others in your group to take responsibility (Alex Kaufaman, 2013). Public education, unfortunately, is notorious for having poorly self differentiated people. This isn’t a blog post to shame a public educator, because I am guilty of sharing my own anxiety too, but I can recognize that I have met campuses with majority educators who are anxious and inflict these thoughts on other colleagues creating an environment of burnout.
I have also seen first hand Friedman’s theory on sabotage. Friedman discussed that when a self differentiated leader, let’s say a principal for example, meets a group of poorly self differentiated people the group feels threatened and questions why, because they do not see the need for change when everything else has been done the same way before (Alex Kaufaman, 2013). Contrary to the sabotage theory, sabotage is usually a negative thing, but Friedman described this kind of push back as being successful because it shows that the leader, or principal, in this example is doing the right thing and not giving in to the anxious attitudes people put forth. With this type of leadership the influence is possible.
Reference
Alex Kaufaman. (2013, August 24). Friedman's Theory of Differentiated Leadership Made Simple [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/i9H-i9lHr28?si=fbC-hsI-0zNORe9x
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