Me, Myself and my Social Identities
A wish for the post pandemic world
‘In the very term ‘work-life balance’ there is already embedded an equation: that work and life should be equally weighted, but also that they are opposites and distinct. Few peoples’ experience of work or life is like this — the boundaries are much more blurred and permeable. Work is life and life includes work — though sometimes work can feel like it excludes life.’
Amanda Sinclair
When I first read this in 2010, it was a ‘lightbulb’ moment. The subtle myriad of ways in which I’d attempted to keep different social identities separate from my work were thrown into sharp relief — for example, my identity as a mother and my spiritual interests. It was the beginning of a journey, where I increasingly sought to take with me to work more of myself and my different identities
The recent phenomenon of so many people working online at home has challenged personal, organisational and societal expectations regarding the separation between work and other social identities. Personally, I have delighted in seeing little faces peering into the screen, teenagers raiding fridges in the background and cats walking across sofas. Whilst I realise that there have been downsides to this way of working (and significant pressures for many), seeing so much more of who people are has radically changed my experience of online working sessions and brought a whole new sense of connection
In response to the challenges of the past year, employees have looked to their organisations for this sense of connection and for direction and support. Whilst many organisations rallied to offer this at the beginning of last year, the unexpected longevity of the pandemic and the associated weariness made it difficult to sustain. An article published by McKinsey in November made a number of suggestions to support organisations with what they called ‘pandemic fatigue.’ One of these was about deep listening:
‘One approach uses leader listening tours, in which executives are trained in deep listening skills before meeting with colleagues across the organisation in virtual focus groups. To create a space for employees to share how they are truly doing, leaders sometimes start by showing vulnerability themselves, which sends a powerful signal that ‘it’s okay to not be okay.’’
Over the past few months, I helped to facilitate 14 online listening sessions for the charity, Humankind, with their Chief Executive, Paul Townsley, who invited staff to meet with him. The feedback from these sessions validated Humankind’s response to the pandemic, with employees talking about how much they valued the organisation’s responsiveness, communication and support. However, the most powerful and poignant features of the meetings were the quality of the very human interactions.
Paul set the tone. He talked about his experience of work when the pandemic started. He also gave a very personal account of the way in which work and family life had become more intertwined, which included caring for his elderly parents and the death of his father.
This encouraged those attending to talk about the way in which the last year had impacted on various aspects of their life, including work. In this context, roles and hierarchy fell away. Instead, we were in a meeting of people, with their multiple identities, strengths, vulnerabilities, their children, their pets, their kitchen tables and their clear commitment to want to do a great job.
When I reflect on my own career there are times when I wish I had not allowed my work to exclude other important self-identities. I wish I’d said more at work about the challenges of the menopause, instead of surreptitiously stripping off layers when having a hot flash and gritting my teeth and carrying on when I felt so much less resilient than previously. I wish I’d sat and cuddled my children more when they were ill, rather than parking them on the couch in front of the TV whilst I worked around them.
Amanda Sinclair (in her book ‘Leadership for the Disillusioned: Moving beyond Myths and Heroes to Leading that Liberates’), points out, however, that wider systemic forces influence our identities, and they can’t solely be seen as a consequence of individual decisions:
‘Identity, rather than being authored in a vacuum by the individual, is constantly under construction in response to social ideas and pressures, constrained by power relations and shaped by dominant mythologies to which individuals subscribe’.
Amanda Sinclair
Whilst I’m sure that there are many parents out there who have felt enormous conflict between their paid work and parenting over the last year, I hope that the dominant mythology that the two have to be kept so separate is shifting. If we keep anything from the last year, let’s keep this — the welcoming of all these identities to the workplace and the sense of connection that it brings.
