Authenticity

Oftentimes, I truly struggle with the role in life that seems to be mine.

In relationship, I showed up: totally, passionately, and with great capacity for commitment. I lived, not merely played, the role of devoted partner, lover, friend, confidante, and care-giver. I loved deeply and had the expectation of being loved back proportionally.

Steadfast in my role, I kept hoping against hope that something would change. I anticipated that she would eventually discover, in this person, me, her mated soul.

Oh, I wanted: the joy of that discovery!

In this life, it seems I keep playing the role of the broken-hearted one. It was a constant theme that I was rejected, left to lick my emotional wounds, allow time for them to scar over, and then attempt the same uneven dynamic all over again.

How can two people be so close and yet so far apart? How can the universe be so cruel?

Today, everyday, I show up in an environment where I attempt to play a similar role. I find myself in another situation where there’s no commitment to me, yet I am expected to show up, perform, give my all, and care. I have been trying to play, at great personal cost, the role of a caring person in a dysfunctional, uncaring place.

Here’s the deal: I believe that I am an authentic individual. I am exhausted by the role of inauthenticity that this environment forces me to play.

I desire connectedness. Team play. Commitment. And, yes, love.

I continue to find myself in situations where those crucial, life-affirming forces are absent.

On and off stage, what I have to offer is my one-man act. Alone. I look around and the set is empty. Except for me.

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
William Shakespeare

Psychic Prisons

I’m in no way a student of The Classics. I regret to report that my formal, “classical,” general education has been woefully inadequate. So, when I now (presume to) speak about Plato’s Republic, and “The Allegory of the Cave,” well, you’re going to need to take what I have to say with not only a grain of salt, but maybe an entire wheelbarrow full!

I was browsing Gareth Morgan’s Images of Organization (1986, my copy of the first edition) today, still (always!) trying to make some sense of my world. (You know me: I can’t seem to shut off my mind!) In the chapter that examines the metaphor of “organizations as psychic prisons,” the discussion begins with a description of Plato’s cave allegory.

The Wikipedia summary of the allegory (copied, pasted, edited) goes thusly:

From Great Dialogues of Plato (Warmington and Rouse, eds.) New York, Signet Classics: 1999. p. 316.

Imagine prisoners who have been chained since childhood deep inside a cave. Their limbs are immobilized, and their heads are fixed as well, so that the only thing they can see is the cave wall. Behind them is an enormous fire, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised walkway, along which men carry From Great Dialogues of Plato (Warmington and Rouse, eds.) New York, Signet Classics: 1999. p. 316.shapes of various animals, plants, and other things. The shapes cast shadows on the wall, which occupy the prisoners’ attention. Also, when one of the shape-carriers speaks, an echo against the wall causes the prisoners to believe that the words come from the shadows. The prisoners engage in what appears to us to be a game — naming the shapes as they come by. This is sum total of their life: the only reality they know.

Now, suppose a prisoner is released and is able to stand up and turn around. At first, his eyes will be blinded by the firelight, and the shapes passing will appear less real than their shadows. Then, if he is dragged up out of the cave into the sunlight, his eyes will be so blinded that he will not be able to see anything. Gradually he will be able to see darker shapes such as shadows, and only later brighter and brighter objects. The last object he would be able to see is the sun, which, in time, he would learn to see as that object which provides the seasons and the courses of the year, presides over all things in the visible region, and is in some way the cause of all these things that he has seen.

I’m wondering if this allegory may be the source of the term “thinking outside the box” – for certainly the freed prisoner is absolutely forced to “think outside the cave” when confronted with a world so dramatically removed from his prior experience. What a total shock to the system to be freed, leave the cave, and discover what’s there to be found!

Is there a modern-day equivalent to the cave? Could our families, workplaces, and/or significant relationships ever be considered versions of the cave? Is it possible we are (or can become) so myopic in terms of how we view the world that we think the shadows on the wall are “reality”?

And, what if we removed ourselves, even for a little while, from the warm cocoon that is our family, job, or relationship, and took a look around at the rest of the world? What would be our experience? Would it be similar to the freed prisoner, who, if he ever went back to the cave, would undoubtedly have significant problems trying to communicate his experience “outside” to the others still imprisoned there? How would it be possible for “the enlightened one” to share his knowledge? What resistance would be met? What ridicule and contempt would he experience for, saying out loud, his newly-acquired version of reality? How could he ever function in the “old way” (seeing and naming the shadows), when he knows “truth”? And, how could the prisoners ever accept an entirely new perspective without the external experience themselves? Wouldn’t this type of new information, so different from their own, be viewed as a tremendous threat?

Aren’t we, everyday of our lives, trapped in the illusion that our experience is “real” – and the only thing? Aren’t we convinced that this is “the way the world works?” Aren’t we, more often than not, content to remain in the dark – neither risking exposure to alternate ways of thinking nor seeking new experiences? In what ways do we all have the tendency to be(come) psychic prisoners, trapped in a reality that gives us a totally skewed understanding of the universe?

[See Morgan, 1986, p. 200, for the discussion that was my inspiration for these questions.]

Soundtrack Suggestion

Chains, my baby’s got me locked up in chains.
And they ain’t the kind that you can see.
Whoa, oh, these chains of love got a hold on me, yeah.

Chains, well I can’t break away from these chains.
Can’t run around, ‘cause I’m not free.
Whoa, oh, these chains of love won’t let me be, yeah.

I wanna tell you, pretty baby,
I think you’re fine.
I’d like to love you,
But, darlin’, I’m imprisoned by these...

Chains, my baby’s got me locked up in chains,
And they ain’t the kind that you can see,
Oh, oh, these chains of love got a hold on me.

(“Chains” - Carole King)

REALness, Authenticity & Leadership

I last wrote on the topic of becoming REAL (as defined in The Velveteen Rabbit). Actually, the more time I spend thinking about this topic, the more I’m coming to the place that that kind of REALness is more accurately aligned with age, maturity, wisdom, and being SIGNIFICANT to someone else. Yes, the Velveteen version of REALness appears to be a response to being loved for a long time.

Typically, though, I think of the term “being REAL” as being AUTHENTIC. I believe that being authentic is a critical factor to success in human relationships in general, and effective leadership in particular. Authenticity leads to trust which can lead to great things being accomplished.

You might ask: what exactly is authenticity?

Well, the phrase “bein’ who you are” comes to mind, first of all. Being real or authentic has a lot to do with displaying your true self to the world, without pretenses or “phoniness” (as Holden Caufield might say). Openness, honesty, and transparency are also other synonyms that seem to fit. At any rate, traits such as these in an individual are ones that I admire, am attracted to, and lead me to trust another. I will trust someone when I believe (when I feel) that the other person is allowing me in enough to see who they really are. They tell the truth. Their defenses are down; they allow themselves to be vulnerable. They are, simply, human, and comfortable with themselves. I love the connection that’s possible when individuals are truly authentic with each other.

I see authenticity as an important characteristic of great leaders, as well. Leaders by definition, after all, need followers. And, what inspires one to follow? Well, trust, of course. How could I possibly be expected to follow somebody I don’t trust?

So: Who do I trust: Who can I trust?

Answer: Someone I really know.

In my role as an academic dean at a college, my role is one of leadership. It is that by definition; anyone with the title of “dean” has some power by virtue of the position and can exert leadership (demand followership?) — if you think that that’s really possible. My style is not to rely on power, control, and role-definition, though, but rather to provide a kind of leadership based on trust: trust in me, trust in my decisions, trust that I’ll do the right thing, trust that I’m someone who has everyone’s best interest in my mind and in my heart.

When I came on board as the “interim dean” (and I'm still interim, eighteen months later), Katrina asked me what my priorities were going to be. I said, “relationships. This is probably not what you’d expect your Science & Technology Dean to say, but that’s me: not necessarily talking, thinking, or behaving like a science guy. I knew that to be successful (not ever having been a dean, department chair, or even a full-time faculty member anywhere, ever), I would have to build the trust of those around me as rapidly as I could. During the very first meeting of the entire Science & Technology Division, the first day of Fall term, I deliberately started to work on building that trust. At the beginning of that meeting, I took a healthy portion of time to “tell my story.” I outlined my biography, highlighting a few of the twists and turns that I’ve taken in my personal and professional life, and exposing, I guess, some of my “philosophy of life.” I believed then, and I still do, that this was a very important thing for me to do in terms of relationship- and trust-building.

I’m told that I’m an effective leader. If such is the case, then I think that’s happened because people trust me. And, I believe that they trust me because they know me. My goal is to be as honest and forthright as I possibly can, with no secrets and no secret agendas. I am who I say I am, do what I say I’m going to do when I say I’m going to do it — and do my job as competently and conscientiously as possible.

I don’t think that great leadership ever happens without trust. And, in my case, I know I could not ever see myself in a leadership role without letting those around me, know me.