Picture this: the meeting is already going sideways when you walk in. Attendance is half-hearted; two people have quit, and the conversation has turned into a list of everything that’s wrong.
Edwin Friedman, a rabbi and family therapist who built on Murray Bowen’s family systems theory, called the skill you need here differentiation. A differentiated leader stays connected to the group’s anxiety without absorbing it, and keeps a clear sense of direction while others lose theirs. He called it a non-anxious presence, and he argued that a group tends to settle toward its steadiest member.
Multifamily property management has no shortage of situations like this: occupancy concerns, staffing shortages, especially on the service side of the business, rent growth moderating, a resident conflict that won’t resolve. You see two options. Match the panic, and your team hears that things are as bad as they fear. Go cold and businesslike, and they hear that you aren’t listening. Both make the room worse.
A third option exists, but it takes preparation. Walk in ready:
- Name it. “This is a hard month, and you’re right to be worried.”
- Separate what you control. “Here’s what we know, and here’s what’s actually in our hands.”
- Give the first move. “Here’s what we do before Friday.”
Try to hold that tone longer than feels natural. Staidness works when it outlasts the anxiety, which gives the room time to get in tune with you.
You can’t improvise this in the moment, because that’s exactly when your own nerves will influence the room.
Discussion Prompt: Which recurring meeting or team dynamic pulls you into a response you later regret, and what three sentences will you bring into it next time?