I’ve been reading Mark Sayers’s interesting book A Non-Anxious Presence, and was particularly struck by this passage:
As a network is swamped by chronic anxiety, it is marked by reactivity. Those within the system no longer act rationally, but rather, high emotion becomes the dominant form of interaction. The system’s focus is directed toward the most emotionally immature and reactive members. Those who are more mature and healthy begin to adapt their behavior to appease the most irrational and unhealthy. This creates a scenario where the most emotionally unhealthy and immature members in the system become de facto leaders, shaping the emotional landscape with the focus on their negative behavior and what they see as the negative behavior of others. The anxiety present envelops the vision of the organization within the system.
You don’t have to know the way Sayers defines words like “network” or “system” in order to recognize what he’s talking about here. The…
