Why Low Differentiation Kills Teams

The Emotionally Healthy Leader Podcast

Emotionally Healthy Spirituality

Newlifefellowship, Religion & Spirituality, Leadership, Richvillodas, Petescazzero, Emotionallyhealthyspirituality, Christianity, Faith, Peterscazzero, Churchleaders, Spirituality, Emotionallyhealthy, Newyork, Pastor

4.8 • 673 Ratings

🗓️ 1 April 2025

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

👉 Take the free EHD Maturity Assessment: emotionallyhealthy.org/mature

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Most pastors and leaders are trained to preach, strategize, and serve—but few are ever taught how to lead from a deeply anchored, differentiated self. And yet, this is the foundation for every healthy team and ministry.

In today’s episode, I unpack one of the most overlooked killers of team health and mission: low differentiation. Drawing from Family Systems Theory, the leadership of David and Jesus, and my own hard-earned lessons over decades, I’ll share four critical reasons why low differentiation sabotages your team—and what you can do about it.

When leaders overfunction, avoid hard conversations, or build their identity on others’ approval, it fractures their soul and destabilizes the team. But when you lead from a solid self—rooted in God, not the demands around you—you raise the maturity level of everyone around you.

This is the crucible of spiritual leadership: becoming yourself in Christ, for the sake of others.

Listen in. It may change how you lead forever.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, everyone. My name is Pete Scuzaro, and today I want to welcome you to the emotionally
0:09.9	healthy leader podcast. Our theme today is why low differentiation kills teams. Why low
0:18.0	differentiation kills teams. Now, this term differentiation comes from
0:22.3	family systems out of a man in the 1950s named Murray Bowen, uh, who developed family systems
0:28.1	theory. And it's just a very helpful term to kind of elucidate and make clear a number of
0:33.5	truths in scripture for us around leadership. So I'm going to explain differentiation briefly, and then I'm going to give four reasons why low differentiation
0:42.6	kills potentially your team, and actually the ministry as a whole. And actually, I started
0:49.0	with 10 reasons. I got it down to four, but it's that vast topic for us.
0:55.0	So a working definition of different differentiation, very simply is this.
0:58.0	It's remaining connected to people, yet not allowing your reactions or behaviors to be determined by them.
1:05.0	So your primary task like Jesus is to be clear about your true self in Jesus over and against the demands and
1:12.2	pressures around you.
1:13.7	No small task.
1:14.7	And two wonderful examples in scripture.
1:16.8	I love to bring.
1:17.4	The first is David in this great story of David and Goliath.
1:21.0	And we see in his own person where as a young man, he's confronting Goliath.
1:25.6	But he goes up against the Israelite troops who have a way of fighting battles, Saul's armor, which is put on him as a way to fight the battle, and the Goliath himself. But he's so clear about who God is and who he is, that he's able to actually charge Goliath and bring him down because he knows himself and he knows God. And he brings into Israel
1:45.6	a whole new way of doing worship with music and dance around the Ark of the Covenant. And he
1:50.5	breaks through into a level of grace that under Moses had never been known for hundreds of years.
1:55.7	But of course, a second great example of differentiation. And the example is Jesus uh who was able to stay connected to the world
2:03.3	whom he came to die for and loves but he was able to differentiate himself over and against his own
	...

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