Senses of Self

December 2, 2007

In The Varieties of Religious Experience, William James describes two basic personality types, “once- born” and “twiceborn.” People of the former personality type are those for whom adjustments to life have been straightforward and whose lives have been more or less a peaceful flow since birth. Twice-borns, on the other hand, have not had an easy time of it. Their lives are marked by a continual struggle to attain some sense of order. Unlike once-borns, they cannot take things for granted. According to James, these personalities have equally different worldviews. For a once-born personality, the sense of self as a guide to conduct and attitude derives from a feeling of being at home and in harmony with one’s environment. For a twice-born, the sense of self derives from a feeling of profound separateness.

A sense of belonging or of being separate has a practical significance for the kinds of investments managers and leaders make in their careers. Managers see themselves as conservators and regulators of an existing order of affairs with which they personally identify and from which they gain rewards. A manager’s sense of self-worth is enhanced by perpetuating and strengthening existing institutions: He or she is performing in a role that is in harmony with the ideals of duty and responsibility. William James had this harmony in mind– this sense of self as flowing easily to and from the outer world – in defining a once-born personality.

Leaders tend to be twice-born personalities, people who feel separate from their environment.They may work in organizations, but they never belong to them. Their sense of who they are does not depend on memberships,work roles, or other social indicators of identity. And that perception of identity may form the theoretical basis for explaining why certain individuals seek opportunities for change. The methods to bring about change may be technological, political, or ideological, but the object is the same: to profoundly alter human, economic, and political relationships.

In considering the development of leadership, we have to examine two different courses of life history: (1) development through socialization, which prepares the individual to guide institutions and to maintain the existing balance of social relations; and (2) development through personal mastery, which impels an individual to struggle for psychological and social change. Society produces its managerial talent through the first line of development; leaders emerge through the second.

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