Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
No state has fallen further than Kansas in America’s Health Rankings. We used to be 8th in 1991.
Why did we slip so far down in the rankings? The answer might surprise you; it’s based on a leadership challenge.
At the Kansas Health Foundation, our bold vision is to make Kansas the healthiest state in the nation and to do so, this movement must be powered by Kansans in positions of authority and influence to shift Health outcomes.
Starting with the launch of the 2025 publication, Leading Health, written by President and CEO of the Kansas Health Foundation, Ed O’Malley, this podcast aims to break down key concepts of this leadership challenge and actionable ways that we can work together to make a real impact on Health in Kansas.
In each episode, Ed O’Malley, and Senior Advisor at Kansas Health Foundation, Susan Kang, will highlight a chapter in the book and discuss with Kansans who are actively engaged in expanding our definition of Health.
Leading Health is an invitation to move the needle on Health in Kansas, and we invite you to join us in leading the way.
Ep12
===
Series Finale Setup
---
[00:00:00]
Phillip Weiss: Hi, this is Philip Weiss and welcome to Noble Metal, where we explore leadership through the lens of Bowen Family Systems theory. Welcome to the fifth and final episode in this little mini series of anxious, reactive patterns under stress. If you recall, we first looked at increased togetherness.
Second was. Conflict. Third [00:01:00] is distance and cutoff favorites for a lot of people. Fourth, also a favorite over and under functioning. And so today we are gonna be coming to our fifth and final, which is a, actually talking about triangles.
I want to start today, not so much with theory, but with a story, which the content of which I think you'll probably recognize maybe from your own workplace, maybe even from your own life in some way.
Sarah Caught in Conflict
---
Phillip Weiss: It's a Tuesday morning. Sarah's the VP of marketing at a mid-size software company, and she has two direct reports who've been working together for the past 18 months. Let's, let's call them Marcus and Kara. On paper, Marcus and Kara are peers. They share responsibility for the same product launch. But over the past few months, something has quietly shifted.
Marcus has started showing up early to Sarah's office to be, to kind of just check in. He mentions in passing that Kara has been missing deadlines. She [00:02:00] seems sort of disengaged and that the team, that the team is actually noticing. Kara for her part has started easing Sarah on emails that used to go only to Marcus.
So she asks Sarah's opinion on decisions that are entirely within her own authority to make. Sarah is a good leader. She's strong. She cares. She listens, and so she starts weighing in. She adjusts a project timeline. She gently coaches Kara in a one-on-one. She reasserts Marcus that she's keeping an eye on things.
And here's what's sort of fascinating. That tension between Marcus and Kara doesn't really go away. It actually increases because what does, what Sarah doesn't really realize at this point is that she's been triangled in and has become a vehicle for sustaining, really the anxiety between the two. She's become the third point of a triangle.
And by joining this triangle, by taking the anxiety, Marcus and Kara can't manage [00:03:00] between themselves and absorbing it into her own role. She has without meaning to made it worse. That is where we're starting today.
Bowen Triangle Basics
---
Phillip Weiss: The Concept of the triangle comes from, of the best thinkers on human family systems. Dr. Murray Bowen. As a quick refresher, Bowen was a psychiatrist who spent decades studying how anxiety moves through families. Eventually, his thinking has been taken beyond families. And it turns out that the same patterns show up in every human systems system really, businesses, churches, schools, governments, even friendships.
A key point of Bowen's thinking is really a deceptively simple. Idea. A two person relationship is fundamentally unstable. When things are calm, two people can manage their connection reasonably well. They can talk, disagree, laugh, work it out, but [00:04:00] introduce sometimes even a modest amount of stress, a deadline, a disappointment, a misunderstanding, something, and that two person.
That twosome rather becomes uncomfortable. The anxiety builds up between these two people like pressure in a sealed container. The relation in a sense that it's that the relationship system can no longer contain the anxiety just between the two. And here's what we as humans do almost automatically.
Almost always, one or both reach out to a third. Forming really a perfect triangle. That third point could be another person, a friend, a sibling, a coworker, a child. It could be hr, it could be an attorney. It might even be alcohol, food or work, but I'm gonna leave that for a later discussion.
Anxiety Dumping Explained
---
Phillip Weiss: But something, someone typically becomes the third [00:05:00] corner of the triangle and the anxiety gets distributed across these three points instead of two. So this distribution is significant. The discomfort and pressure of the anxiety, and let's, let's be real here. We, anxiety is uncomfortable so that discomfort and pressure is dispersed or diluted, making it momentarily least, you know, temporarily more bearable for the two. I refer to it actually as anxiety dumping.
I'm upset with somebody or something, so then I take my upset and I dump it onto somebody else, and for the moment there is a cozy comfort in the togetherness. We're back to that togetherness idea of the two. They are for the moment, those two on the inside and the other person is on the outside and it feels good to be on that cozy inside, even if it's temporary.
That's the nature of [00:06:00] triangles. Two are on the inside and one is on the outs in the short run. This feels like relief. The pressure does drop and things feel a little more manageable.
But here's the cost. The original tension between the two people doesn't get resolved. It really just gets stabilized at a lower intensity. So it's still there, but the intensity is admittedly lower. So the triangle can become a way of avoiding the real work of relationships, and this is where Bowen makes one of his most important observations.
Triangles Everywhere
---
Phillip Weiss: In any family, in any organization, there's not just one triangle. There are dozens of interlocking triangles, each one borrowing anxiety from others, each one pulling people into roles they didn't consciously choose. And so for that reason, the triangle [00:07:00] Bowen said, is the basic building block of any emotional system.
When we understand that, I mean really understand it. We start to see the world a little differently. We start to see triangles everywhere in some measure, and that is both unsettling and at the same time, practically useful. Very useful.
Spotting Triangles Early
---
Phillip Weiss: So a key point of emphasis that I want to make here right now is that triangles are not, are normal.
They're neither good or bad. They just, they just really are. So then the questions that it brings up at this point are how aware of them are we and, and how do we manage ourselves inside of them. The first challenge that Bowen identifies isn't solving triangles. It's simply just seeing them. Can I, can I see what is going on here?
This sounds easy, but it really, in some ways, it, it isn't part of the reason it's hard is that [00:08:00] triangles often feel like something else entirely. Regarding the receiver angle that we're talking about today, it feels like.
Potentially being helpful. It feels like being a good listener. It feels like being appropriately concerned. So when Marcus comes into Sarah's office and expresses worry about Kara, it doesn't feel like strangling. It doesn't feel bad. It feels potentially like a responsible employee raising a legitimate concern.
And it might be. Partially, but something else is also happening. Marcus is offloading his anxiousness that he hasn't been able to manage directly with Kara and Sarah. By absorbing it is taking on a role in the two person dynamic that really in some measure is probably not hers to play.
Spotting the Signs
---
Phillip Weiss: So let me give you some signs that this type of triangle is forming around you.
And I say this type of triangle. There are lots of different ways these triangles surface. I am zeroing in [00:09:00] today on this idea of a third person being brought in as sort of a, a mediator, if you will. But there are so many others. So for, so regarding this triangle that we're speaking of today. What you notice is that you're hearing a lot about a relationship between two other people, and those two people aren't talking directly to each other about the issue.
So there's one sign. Secondly, you feel the pull to fix something. Take a side to make peace even when the conflict isn't really yours. Another sign might be is that you find yourself carrying emotional weight that seems disproportionate to your actual role in the situation, or, and this one is maybe a little more subtle.
You notice that whenever you step back, the tension between the other two people seems to flare up and there's that pull to fix. That's often a sign that your presence in the triangle is keeping [00:10:00] things artificially stable. In families, these patterns are often even more embedded. A mother, for example, who becomes the go-between for a father and a teenage teenage son, a grandmother who's always being consulted whenever two siblings fight, or a an adult child, who becomes the one everybody talks to about their parents' marriage.
We enter these types of triangles with the best of intentions and often really with with love. But the effect is too often predictable, that anxious twosome never has to face, in a sense its own discomfort. So seeing these triangles is the first step, and it's genuinely hard work because we're not used to looking for them.
Own Your Part
---
Phillip Weiss: So next concept here, the next sort of move is owning your part in the triangle. This is a huge concept in bow in theory, and I am very grateful for the [00:11:00] emphasis about, of taking responsibility for my part in any relationship dynamic. And so I wanna stick with this for a minute. What, what is owning my part of a triangle?
What might that mean or look like? Once you start seeing the triangles, the natural next move is to analyze everybody else's role in them. How did they get pulled in? Why are they involved? How are they perpetuating the dynamic? We're, but, but the Bro Bowen framework asks something different, and in my opinion, it asks something more mature and harder to do, which again, is what is my art?
This is not in a blame myself, harsh way. It's not a form of self-flagellation, but it's a genuine, curious, honest, growth oriented way of saying, how am I participating in this triangle? What, what am I adding to it? So let's go back to Sarah. When she reflects, [00:12:00] honestly, she starts to know something. She actually feels in a way more comfortable, I, that's kind of the word I'm using here.
When Marcus comes to her with concerns, it gives her a sense of being important, of being in the loop, of being the kind of manager who's connected to her team. And there's something really gratifying about that. So in her case, she manages both of 'em separately, maneuvers or triangles herself into the metal and makes you know, and mistakes that for good leadership.
This actually is what Bowen might have called a low differentiation move. Not completely horrible, but not completely helpful either here, but a move made from ultimately an anxious place from the desire to manage discomfort rather than tolerate it. And, and maybe better lead more effectively, lead people through it.
So this idea of owning your own part in a triangle means asking some honest questions. What do [00:13:00] questions such as? What do I get from being in the middle of this? Is it a sense of importance, a feeling of being sort of indispensable and needed When do I seek out a third party to manage the discomfort in one of my own relationships rather than dealing with a tension directly? When do I seek out that other person to come to my side to feel sort of that cozy to connect togetherness with? These types of reflections are actually a ma a moving toward a more mature, rigorous self examination.
It's the kind of inner honest work that doesn't show up on a performance review, but shapes many of the interactions that you might have.
CEO Case Study
---
Phillip Weiss: So I wanna share what I would call a composite story where I'm drawing from patterns that I've seen and read about in organizational consulting context. The details are meant for illustration. They're not based on any one single company. So ACEC, EO of a growing [00:14:00] healthcare technology company, and let's, let's call her, Dr.
Chen, was navigating a difficult period in the organization. The company had missed two consecutive earning targets. The board was anxious, so anxieties up, and two of her senior executives, her CFO, and her chief product officer, were an open conflict about the strategic direction. People knew they were at odds.
The CFO believed the company needed to cut costs and consolidate par par for the course. The C the, the CPO Chief Product Officer believed that they needed to double down on innovation and invest aggressively. So polar opposite theories and philosophies here, both were smart. Both had data and both had independently begun cultivating relationships with individual board members, essentially kind of taking her case upstairs, building the case upstairs, [00:15:00] Dr. Chen was caught in a classic triangle.
She was between her two executives and both had created interlocking triangles by reaching up to board members. So her initial instinct was to convene more meetings to, with the two, to referee, bring them together, find the middle ground. She was in effect managing the anxiety of the system, but in a way that kept her perpetually in control and prevented anyone from having to tolerate the discomfort of of real resolution.
It so happened a consultant she worked with introduced her to Bowen's framework and a subtle shift started to happen. She began to rec, recognize her own lack of neutrality in the situation. I'm gonna get to that later. She stopped simply listening to individual side complaints.
Instead, she took a [00:16:00] two-pronged action of what I call triangle leadership. First, she began getting more curious. Each one of them about their positions asking powerful questions. Why was this important to them? Why was their specific position meaningful to them? What data did they have to support their thinking?
What other alternative could they consider? What other data might they consider? So curious, questioning, getting them to do like, we like to say, sometimes their own best thinking about the situation. She also clearly named the dynamic that they were each reaching out to her for her to take their side.
She was not going, and she, she determined and told them she was not going to going to be the go-between. In this case, she told both of them directly that she expected them to work through their disagreements and with each other and bring her unified proposals. So in short, she stepped [00:17:00] back and she stayed engaged.
And so what I like to call, she, she remained separate but still connected. She did not disengage from the dynamic. This caused a short-term spike in anxiety. The system didn't like losing its, you know, triangulated stabilizer, so to speak. Dr. Chen, the CFO was annoyed.
The CPO felt unsupported. Two board members called Dr. Chen to express their concern, but she held her position. And within six weeks, the CFO and CPO had actually negotiated a framework together. It wasn't perfect, but it was real.
So, Dr. Chen solved the problem. She didn't solve the problem, I should say, by letting herself get tangled in. Instead, she solved it by stepping back and trusting the system and two mature leaders inside of it to reorganize around her absence from the middle. This, I believe, is [00:18:00] a, is a, a very solid example of differentiated leadership in action.
So no doubt we might find ourselves in many similar situations.
Neutrality as a Leader
---
Phillip Weiss: And before I go into more kind of solution mode here, I want to highlight an Es an a really essential concept in this whole triangle dynamic. And that is the concept of neutrality neutrality. For me, one of the most valuable emphasis really in Bowen theory is the idea of developing emotional and intellectual neutrality in the face of a challenge.
Really, there's nowhere else that I have heard it spoken of more deliberately than in this theoretical context. This neutrality is the ability in, in the force and headwinds of togetherness, the ability and the force and headwinds of togetherness to remain more neutral, [00:19:00] more open, more objective in a given situation, open to new data, open to new ideas.
So still holding your own thinking, still holding your own data, but there's an, there remains there, kind of a posture of openness. Why would this posture potentially be valuable for a leader? What do individuals or groups gain from the leader's Neutrality.
I am personally convinced that as leaders, whether it's of an organization or if it it's parenting, one of our jobs is to help those under our authority, raise their own level of functioning and capability. If I am always stepping in, taking sides, basically over-functioning, then people will not have the opportunity to build their own muscles because we're doing the work for them.
So lemme just say, I get it. There are times when we have to step in, but should it always be our go-to? Do we [00:20:00] always have to take sides? Do we always have to take that bait? Do we always have to start telling people what to do and how to think What happens if we engage in behaviors that actually enable others to do their own best thinking?
To build those muscles, to work those muscles out for themselves. To do this, I believe we have to begin, we have to have that mindset that's geared toward neutrality. I might have to learn to tolerate the discomfort of the contention. I might have to be okay with the fact that two people are, that I care about are at odds, but I'm working to be Switzerland here because I believe there's value to it. Now I wanna make a qualifying statement here, which is I have seen some leaders hide behind this idea of neutrality as a way of not getting involved in what I would actually call dereliction of deter duty.[00:21:00]
Really? Hey, it's not my battle. It's you know, they're adults, they're mature, they're getting paid good money. They need to go figure this out for themselves. Now, there is, there is probably a great deal of truth in, in what I just said there, or what, what somebody, what a leader might say in a situation like that.
And there also may be though, an opportunity to partner with those people and coaching them through those tensions with each other. There's a absolute coaching opportunity there, so I wanna be clear that what I'm not advocating is this complete hands off. Hey, it's not mine. Remember I said earlier, separate, but connected.
So I separate. I'd step out of the fight to a degree, to a good degree. I might provide some coaching, and ultimately my goal is for them to begin to work toward a solution themselves. I may though at some point. If it doesn't work [00:22:00] out, have to step in again. So I just wanna be clear that I'm not advocating for just complete hands off and looking, you know, creating an excuse to not be involved.
Six Practical Strategies
---
Phillip Weiss: So what are some strategies for managers and parents when somebody is trying to bring you in? So, you know, first of all, let's just kinda set the context again. In a workplace it sounds like, like it could sound like this, it sounds like, I just want you to know what's going on with the team, or I don't know if you're aware, but people are really struggling with Jordan's leadership style.
The, the implications are, are clear. You're being asked to become that third point of the triangle, and join in against somebody else in a family? It can sound like Dad, do you, do you know what mom said?
A sibling calling you to process their complaint about another sibling or a parent divulging marital frustrations to an adult child potentially. So Here are six concrete strategies or considerations that systems inform thinkers [00:23:00] very well might recommend for navigating these moments with maturity. Remember, this is a move toward greater differentiation that that expensive word from Bowen theory. Differentiation of self. We're moving toward that and greater maturity on our part as leaders. So what's the first one?
Notice the pull before you act on it. There's often even a physiological sensation, a slight energizing a gossipy sort of excitement, a feeling of importance or maybe a knot of dread at at times when you're being triangled in. Learn to name it internally. You know, think I'm being invited into a triangle right now.
That pause is huge and can be very helpful.
Secondly, think about managing your own anxiety first. 'cause no doubt your anxiety is present and, and ironically, the reason we get pulled into triangles is that sometimes it's because we too are [00:24:00] anxious and we're kind of, I wonder, you know, I'd sometimes wonder if we kind of just naturally, you know, attract fellow anxious beings.
We get anxious about the conflict between the other two people. We get anxious about being left out, about seeming cold or unhelpful if we don't engage. So managing your own discomfort, that willingness to, to, to engage. The sort of the tension management is the prereq prerequisite, I would say, to staying out of the middle.
It's, it's a helpful lead in.
Third work toward that genuine neutrality. And, and again, as I sit here today, I, I'm still thinking that it's a mindset. Declare to yourself a commitment to neutrality. This doesn't mean that you won't have an opinion on a, on a, on the topic at hand. You might really agree. The person coming to you, but that might not be the point.
The point might actually be what's best for these two people as they [00:25:00] navigate this? How can I be that leader resource that helps them do their own best thinking here, that leader resource me as a resource to them.
Fourth, declined to take sides. That may not be in all cases, but you might have to, in some case, flat out cases.
Flat out. Say this, somebody brings you a complaint about the third party. A third party, you might need to resist the urge to immediately respond instead of saying something like, okay, I'll talk to them. try, Hey, it sounds like this needs to maybe be a direct conversation between the two of you.
Can I support you in having it? What could that support look like?
Fifth, stay curious rather than taking sides. Ask questions that invite the person to examine their own experience rather than necessarily building a case against somebody else. For example, you know what's, what's your sense of what's driving this? [00:26:00] What have you tried directly before? What would a good outcome look like for you?
And one of my favorite questions compliments a fellow executive coach, Eric Thompson. What would leadership from you look like here right now? Lemme repeat that. It's such a great question. What would leadership from you look like in this situation right now? I love that because it's a challenge to the people in question to to stand up and be the leaders that they probably are really wanting to be.
Sixth and finally consider the source and the motives. I do believe that there's something to be said about the character and reputation of the person coming to you, a high integrity performer versus a perennial complainer there. There are different. There. They can be different, and we need to factor that in.
But I would say this, even with that high integrity performer. There could very well be opportunity for growth and new [00:27:00] ways for that person to be thinking or behaving. None of these strategies is about being cold or disengaged. It's still that separate but connected. The goal is not to refuse relationship, but it's to be in relationship without becoming a stabilizer for somebody else's.
Avoided tension.
Family Triangle Story
---
Phillip Weiss: As we move toward a close. I, I want to, I want to close out with a fa actually this episode with a family story because as much as Bowen's ideas apply to organizations, they were developed in families, and it's in families that we see the fullest, deepest expression of interlocking triangles.
This too also is a composite story drawing from patterns that have appeared across countless families and a ResSem. Any resemblance to any specific situation that you might know of is strictly coincidental. The patterns though, are just so common. They're so common. So let's call this the Patterson [00:28:00] family, three generations.
At the top of the genogram, genogram being like a family organizational chart, are Richard and Helen Patterson. They've been married for 47 years. Richard's a retired engineer. He's quiet, emotionally reserved. Helen is warm, talkative, and has always managed the emotional life of the family. In their marriage, there's always been some distance, not particularly hostile.
It's actually been functional. They coexist though in some measure more than they actually connect into that emotional space. Years ago, Helen drew their oldest son, Daniel into. It was subtle, gradual. She would occasionally talk to Daniel about her frustrations with Richard. Not big dramatic complaints, just small ones over year over, you know, over some over time.
Daniel became her confidant. He became in Bowen's language, overly [00:29:00] fused with his mother, just like hyper togetherness on steroids. in this triangle. Helen, Richard, and Daniel, in a sense stabilize the marriage. It kept the anxiety kind of at bay by routing the energy between the three. So let's fast forward. Now Daniel is 43. He's married to a woman named Claire, and they have two kids. And here's what Daniel has begun to notice now that he's doing some of his own work with a systems oriented coach.
He feels a constant kind of low level anxiety when his phone rings and it's his mom. He loves her. Of course he does, but he also knows that many of the call these calls involve her processing her feelings about Richard, his dad, and he, Daniel always ends the call feeling slightly depleted, resentful, and maybe just even a little bit used.
But more importantly, he started to see the [00:30:00] same pattern in his own marriage when he and Claire are intention. Daniel has found himself spending more time at work, investing more emotionally in his relationship with his oldest daughter, Emma and Emma, perceptive sensitive. Emma has started asking him questions about whether mom and dad are okay.
The triangle has moved down a generation. This is what Bowen called transmission across generations, patterns of triangling and other, these other patterns that we have covered here in the pre prior form episodes, they don't disappear. They get handed down. Not intentionally, not cruelly, but through the invisible logic of how anxiety moves through systems and generations, you start to see patterns from one generation to the next in terms of functioning.
And that that visibility into those patterns can be very helpful. Daniel's work and it's really [00:31:00] hard. Courageous work is actually threefold. He's gotta see the triangle. See, he's in with his parents. Not to blame his mother because he's participating. He's been participating it as, as well over the years.
Not to resent his dad for his emotional absence, but to understand with a bit more compassion and clarity and objectivity, what role that he, Daniel has been playing. He's gotta begin the slow process of repositioning himself in that triangle, becoming like. As I like to call it, that triangle leader, even in this case with his folks, this might mean telling his mother lovingly, but directly, mom, I love you and I want to be close to you, and I've realized that I'm not the right person to help you process things with dad.
That's a conversation that belongs between the two of you. And admittedly that that, that's a huge statement. Could take a lot of [00:32:00] courage. That conversation will absolutely cause anxiety. Helen May feel hurt. She may be felt. She might feel cut off by Daniel, dissed by him. Richard May feel uncomfortable with more direct engagement from his wife.
The triangle will resist losing Daniels as its third point because he's been stabilizing it for a while. But Daniel is also working on his own marriage. He and Claire have started having harder conversations, the one they used to avoid by retreating to work to kids, to busyness in general, it's uncomfortable, but the alternative, passing the pattern in this case to Emma is no longer acceptable to him.
So this is what growth can look like in Bowen's framework. It's not dramatic, it's not sudden, it's it's, but instead it's a steady, humble, persistent movement toward greater honesty, clarity, directness, and tolerance for the discomfort that comes with being more real in [00:33:00] connection.
Wrap Up and Takeaways
---
Phillip Weiss: So let's move toward a final wrap here. The concept of triangles and interlocking triangles is huge in Bowen theory, and believe it or not, I have only touched on kind of a tip of the iceberg. There's so much more to cover here, and we'll, we'll do that in upcoming episodes. A quick summary of triangle concepts here. First, a two person system under stress will automatically pull in a third. The triangle then becomes the basic building block or molecule of any emotional system. Third, the triangle stabilizes, but it doesn't resolve. It lowers the emotional temperature between the original two people without addressing really the underlying tension.
Fourth triangles interlock. There are multiple triangles. Third point in one triangle is usually part of other triangles. Fifth, there is always an inside of the triangle with a third on the outside [00:34:00] sixth. The goal is not to eliminate triangles, but to move through them with greater awareness and less re reactivity to become that triangle leader.
And seventh, you can only change your own position. You, we cannot, as I like to say to folks, sometimes breaking news, we can't change other people, but we do have a shot at managing ourselves better in these dynamics.
So, as I said, we're gonna get a lot more into triangles, but for now, here's how I'd like to sum, summarize this journey in three movements. One, see them, see the triangles. Two. Own your part in them. Three, take a few steps toward differentiation. Every one of those small moves sends a signal through the system.
The anxiety will spike briefly. The system might resist, but that means you're actually doing something of significance. Potentially over time, though, the system potentially [00:35:00] reorganizes for the better functioning goes up. You emerge from that process, not as someone who has escaped their relationships, but as someone who is more genuinely present in them.
This is in my, in my opinion, is one of the gifts that Bowen's framework offers us. I want to close with a quote from Ed Freeman's failure of nerve. Ed Freeman was a friend and proponent of Bowen, who's credited with actually kind of taking Bowen theory beyond families into congregational and organizational settings.
So his great book, A Failure of Nerve Freeman, speaks of the Leader's Mindset and notes, the need to shift. Quote, our orientation to how we think about relationships from one that focuses on techniques and that that motivate others to one that focuses on the leader's own presence and being. So until next [00:36:00] time, keep seeing clearly own your part and muster the courage to take even one step.
Thank you.