Education and Maturity - Thoughts from Robert Greenleaf (Part 2)

Why does time have to pass so quickly??

Here we go...part 2 of 4. In this article, we will continue our journey through the second of four concerns Greenleaf mentions in his talk that he gave to the faculty and students of Barnard College on November 30, 1960.

As a reminder, the four concerns Greenleaf identified include:

1. The consequences of stress and responsibility

2. The tension between the requirement to conform and the essential person

3. The struggle for significance - the complications of status, property, achievement

4. Facing the requirements for growth; accepting some process for drawing forth one's uniqueness.

The second issue Greenleaf identifies, the tension between the requirement to conform and the essential person, has provided quite a bit of thought and emotion for me. At the surface, I am immediately drawn to the word, "conform." I would argue this would be the case for others as well. What does it mean to conform? Should we be expected to conform? Can conformity be a good thing? Is this something that has an over and under use associated with it?

Each of these questions take my thoughts in completely different directions and I find myself trying to examine the neutrality of what is being said here. But I am conflicted by my own personal experiences around conformity and how they impact my life today.

Before I jump into any personal rants, let's consider what Greenleaf is saying. Remember, this talk is focused around the goal of using your time in higher education to find what 'lights your lamp.' As Greenleaf says, "If, in your college years you learn nothing other than who you are, that you have a private lamp, your stay here will have been amply justified" (p. 3).

But, what if you are reading this and you are past - or before - your higher education years. Take it and apply it to your context. If we, in our life, can come to the awareness that we all have a personal lamp and we can know what lights that lamp, then we are ahead of the curve. My words.

Let's get back to conformity. How might conformity impact our understanding our our personal lamp and the knowledge of what 'lights' that lamp? Greenleaf says, "Conformity has become a nasty word. It has almost become the battle cry of those of our generation who see their role as the modern version of the muckrackers of fifty years ago" (p. 6). He continues by saying, "the attacks on conformity confuse the issue because in any organized society there must be a lot of conformity" (p.6).

Read that again - and I am going to use my personal reaction here. When I first read the second concern I attacked the word conformity and thought something along the lines of how bad confirmity is and how it damages our uniqueness. However, with Greenleaf's guidance, we have to pull back those emotions to understand that conformity is all around us. Think about society - driving, interacting with others, our daily actions - there is conformity in it all. There has to be. If there is not some level of conformity, how would we be able to operate cars? Right? We are conforming when we stay in our lanes and follow traffic rules.

Ok - so, if we can accept that conformity is apart of our daily lives, then I would offer that we shift our thinking of conformity and use a 'sliding scale' approach. When we think about who we are as people, we want to make sure we are not sliding the conformity "bar" too far one way so that we lose our sense of self.

Greenleaf states, "The problem is to know conformity for what it is: a completely external adjustment to the group norm of behavior in the interest of group cohesiveness and effectiveness" (p. 7).

To bring in my team effectiveness work, I often stress with teams that we need to remove the question from the picture. When we are working as a team, we need to understand and agree with how we want to interact with each other. How will we communicate? How will we deal with conflict? How will we handle accountability? etc. What are we doing? We are creating norms that we can align on when we are together. These are not norms that will dictate how we live our lives outside of the office, yet, these are behaviors that we will all agree to so we can conform and achieve success as a team.

This is the challenge. How do we conform in our environment and keep perspective and clarity as to who we are? Greenleaf gives us an answer when he says, "The great danger is that one will lose one's identity in the act of conformity, not knowing which is the essential person and which is the conforming act, and thereby forfeit his right to be respected as an individual" (p. 7).

So, I go back to the sliding scale image. As individuals, we have to first have clarity as to who we are. This is our starting point. Who are you as a person? What defines you? What do you want people to know you for? If you cannot answer these questions - and I will offer I personally feel these questions will never have a permanent answer - then you need to spend some time exploring this. Because until you know who you are at your core, your passions, your love, your commitments, you won't be able to understand the role conformity plays in your life.

Once you feel you have some awareness around who you are, then you can start to examine the role conformity plays in your life. Is it too much? Too little? You get to decide. That's the beauty of it. So, how will you slide your slider?

Be well,

Jason R. Weber, Ed.D.

Owner / Advisor

SLI Coaching and Consulting

Jason@slicoaching.net

806-507-2046

Greenleaf, R. (1960). Education and Maturity. A talk to Faculty and Students at Barnard College. November 30, 1960. The Robert K. Greenleaf Center.