Uproar: Calm Leadership in Anxious Times

By: Peter L. Steinke

Narrated by: Ed Phillips

If “these are the times that test men’s souls”, never more than for the leader’s ability to think clearly, to be present calmly, and to challenge effectively. It’s a time when leaders cannot be as anxious as those they serve; otherwise, the system is leaderless. Anxiety flows down like water from a leaky pipe. To lead effectively we must understand the impact of powerful emotional forces on people’s behavior, especially in anxious times.

Uproar: Calm Leadership in Anxious Times helps leaders understand the powerful impact that emotional processes have on the people they lead. Peter Steinke, best-selling author of Congregational Leadership in Anxious Times, draws on decades of work on system conflict and personal experiences to share real stories of challenges leaders have faced and how understanding the power of emotions has dramatically influenced their success.

In this book, listeners will observe important leadership characteristics such as separating oneself from the surrounding anxiety, making decisions based on principle and not instinct, taking responsibility for one’s own emotional being, staying connected to others including those who disagree with you, being a non-anxious presence, focusing on emotional processes rather than the symptoms they produce, knowing people naturally influence one another, and recognizing leader and follower as complements.

At the end of each chapter, there is a Leader’s Notebook, a short section to illustrate, enrich, or engage your thinking about leadership. As Steinke suggests, being anxious causes you to lose perspective, and leaders do their best thinking when they are not overly stressed and can think about options, doing their best work when they work on themselves. So where are you in your leadership journey? No matter where you are - beginning, middle or end - this book will be one the most significant leadership books you’ll listen to.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2019 Peter L. Steinke (P)2019 Peter L. Steinke

Important for any time, especially now

I would recommend also reading his book Congregational Leadership in Anxious Times: Being Calm and Courageous No Matter What. It is more helpful than Uproar because it was written before our current political climate yet speaks to it from a distance.

Good but could have been Great.

I recommend reading Failure of Nerve before Uproar, as the two books complement each other well. Uproar serves as a strong supplement to Failure of Nerve and offers excellent insights on leadership.

That said, I was disappointed by the author’s frequent references to cultural hot-button issues such as gun control, environmentalism, and criticisms of Trump to illustrate certain points. While the author is clearly intelligent, experienced, and thoughtful, these examples felt unnecessarily polarizing. If the goal is to highlight how “well differentiated leaders” navigate tension, it would have been wise to include multiple perspectives rather than leaning into one side of the debate.

For the record, I am not a blind supporter of Trump, Biden, Obama, or Bush. I believe gun laws should be enforced and consequences for gun crimes should be more severe. But when political “mini digs” are inserted, they muddy the waters and distract from the otherwise outstanding leadership content.

I genuinely wanted to give this book five stars, and as a lead pastor, I would have liked to recommend it to my staff and congregation. Unfortunately, I can’t fully do so because of these distracting elements. Still, if you’re a leader, I believe you will benefit from the principles in this book. It’s a good resource but it could have been great.