Quotes and Notes from Hugh’s book list:   Today’s notes are on Extraordinary Relationships: A New Way of Thinking About Human Interactions, by Roberta Gilbert   This book is about the leadership methodology created by Psychiatrist, Murry Bowen, M.D. His colleague, Roberta Gilbert has taken the writings of Bowen and put them into systems for learning. I have worked with Roberta for about 10 years in seminars and private coaching. I find that this is the most effective and useful leadership methodology I have ever experienced.   Before studying Bowen Systems with Roberta, I had developed my own leadership content, so I had trouble getting my head around something like this. Over time I embraced the systems thinking taught by Roberta and found that the two actually compliment each other in the following ways:

• Transformation Leadership as I teach it is a system based on a vision and not the autocratic thinking of the leader. The leader is, however the creator of that vision and the champion for that vision. The system is about high performing cultures with leaders on teams. Transformation of self comes first, then transformation of the culture and the organization is possible.
• Bowen Systems is about self awareness and discovery to manage self as a leader. In order to be effective the leaders must know self and manage self.

These two methods work well together in the Transformational Leader must manage self to be the influencer for success. Too many times a leader blames others for situations of their own choosing.   Quotes: Here are some quotes from Dr. Bowen: You have inherited a lifetime of tribulation. Everybody has inherited it. Take it over, make the most of it and when you have decided you know the right way, do the best you can with it.   That which is created in a relationship can be fixed in a relationship.   I consider rugged individualism to be an exaggerated pretend posture of a person struggling against emotional fusion. The differentiated person is always aware of others and the relationship system around him.   The basic building block of any emotional system is the triangle.   One of the most important aspects of family dysfunction is an equal degree of overfunction in another part of the family system. It is factual that dysfunctioning and overfunctioning exist together.   Overfunctioning is irresponsible responsibility.   It’s ok to have empathy, but one must get out of it quickly.   The goal is to rise up out of the emotional togetherness that finds us all.   In the history of calming down has anyone ever calmed down by being told to calm down.   The human has been slow to learn about his own inner space within his own skull. Thus far we have hardly scratched the surface.   All things being equal, the life course of people is determined by the amount of unresolved emotional attachment, the amount of anxiety that comes from it, and the way they deal with this anxiety.   The goal... is to rise up out of the emotional togetherness that binds us all.

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