Every few years, a new leadership style captures the collective imagination — often because it flatters our kids. Right now, it's "Conscious Unbossing," Gen Z's polite refusal to manage anyone because, bless them, they're too emotionally self-aware to boss and too exhausted to be bossed. A decade ago, it was "servant leadership," before that "transformational," before that something military-sounding.

These style debates aren't wrong; they're just surface-level. Most leadership breakdowns aren't about choosing the wrong approach. They're about emotional fusion — when leaders lose track of where they end and their teams begin.

The real challenge? Not charisma or consensus. It's self-differentiation.

Related: This is the Kind of Leadership That Will Transform Your Team

Edwin Friedman, rabbi and leadership contrarian, once said that leadership isn't about style — it's about managing emotional fields. Not in the "group hug" sense, but in the "this place is dripping with anxiety and I just absorbed it through my pores" sense.

He built on Murray Bowen's family systems theory, which starts with this uncomfortable truth: Organizations don't just feel like families — they function like them. We over-function, under-function and triangle into drama that isn't ours, and........

© Entrepreneur