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Welcome to episode 212 of The Nonanxious Leader Podcast. I'm Jack Shitama, and we are going to get right into today's episode, which is based on an article I found from Kellogg Insight that is the Kellogg School of Business connected to Northwestern University. The article is could bringing your whole self to work curb on ethical behavior. And it's based on the research of Mahdi Ibrahimi, Mariam Kuchaki and Vanessa Patrick Rohan. It opens with this question which employee would you rather have on your team? One who embodies the Bard's maxim to thine own self be true, or one who used closer to Michael Corleone's credo that it's not personal, it's strictly business? When I worked in the corporate world, I found that the latter was true. It was more about business, and oftentimes you had to make decisions that were based more on money than on people. And while it may be true that the way to get ahead in business is to focus more on money, it didn't feel very good to me. So that's why this article stuck out. The crux of the article is that when people have to separate their work identity from their personal identity, that is, what they feel is their identity.

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Outside of work with their homes and families and other activities, this leads them to feel inauthentic, which actually increases the likelihood of unethical behavior. Of course, selfdifferentiation is the opposite. Instead of feeling inauthentic, working towards self differentiation means we're working toward integrity. Integrity is when you act in accordance with your goals and values, and self differentiation takes it a step further. It says that you act in accordance with your goals and values in the midst of surrounding togetherness pressure. Kuchaki uses the term identity integration, which means that when we are feeling inauthentic, we lack identity integration. We are not able to act in accordance with our goals and values. She says, "We each have multiple identities that can manifest at any time. When those identities are integrated through shared meaning, there's a sense of cohesiveness, which leads to greater feelings of authenticity and better moral behavior. But when they're segmented, we feel in conflict, which creates a sense of inauthenticity and increased risk of unethical behavior." I believe most people resonate with this idea of multiple identities. You can be a leader, a pastor, a partner, a parent, a friend, a child, a sibling, not to mention things that represent our passions, such as an artist, runner, scholar, musician, writer, et cetera.

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The researchers took 300 working adults and told them that they have two major identities their professional identity and their non professional identity, which is the one that they have outside of work. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two groups one that read and responded to statements designed to prompt feelings of low identity integration and a group that read and responded to statements designed to prompt high identity integration. Another way to look at this is that participants were prompted to feel either less self-differentiated or more self-differentiated. Participants were then asked to play a virtual coin flip game where they would predict the outcome of a coin flip and then to honestly report the accuracy of those predictions and that they would receive money for correct predictions. Researchers found that those participants who actually were prompted to feel low identity integration cheated significantly more than both those who were exposed to high integration statements or a control group that was exposed to neither statements. Further research found that both feeling fake and increased bad behavior were linked to low identity integration. The researchers also did a study where they had 150 pairs of supervisors and their supervisees.

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The surveys that were returned indicated that those workers who had low identity integration felt more inauthentic and were judged by their supervisors to be more likely to engage in unethical behavior. I don't think this is a surprise to many people. The question is, how would we interpret this from a family systems perspective? The first thing that I think of when I think of this study is the concept of reactivity. One form of reactivity, as you may know, is when you get defensive or argumentative. And if you are feeling pressured to do something that is not consistent with your goals and values, you may get defensive, you may start arguing. However, you also may not be considered a team player. Instead of taking a non anxious stand where you're able to self differentiate and explain why you don't want to go along with something that you're being pressured to do, especially in the work situation or in a congregational situation, then you are less likely to feel authentic. This is especially true if you end up in a conflict of wills where you are trying to show that you're right and let's say your boss or the church council is trying to show you why you are wrong and in the end you are forced to comply.

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This will not only breed feelings of inauthenticity, but it could also breed feelings of resentment. Another form of reactivity is adaptivity. That is, when you don't take a stand, you don't self define and you just give in without stating what you really believe. I actually think this might be the more dangerous of the two responses. Because even though you just go along and even though there's not a lot of drama, over time, I think it will get even more difficult to self differentiate because you keep burying your feelings and you haven't been able to self define in a healthy way. Even though when you are reactive, when you get defensive or argumentative. It is not really helpful because of the conflict of wills. At least you are self defining, at least you are expressing yourself. I do also think there is a difference between a work situation and a congregational situation because in the former a supervisor can force you to do something and you have to go along. In the church situation, I'm not sure that a church council can force a pastor or leader to go along as easily. There might be a vote and the pastor might be forced to comply, but I think this happens less frequently.

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On the other hand, I do believe that in congregational situations the surrounding togetherness pressure can be much more subtle and therefore much more difficult to identify and to respond in healthy ways. To me, the important part, whether it's a work or congregational situation, is to be able to express what you believe, especially at work. There are going to be times when you won't have a choice. But if you are able to say I don't really agree with this, but I will go along because and it may be because you're the boss, it may be because you have agreed to work as a member of the team. In fact, oftentimes they call this disagree commit, where you say I disagree with this, but I will commit to the course of action because I am a team player. Notice how the latter part of that statement emphasizes emotional connection. It shows that you don't want to disconnect, that you don't want to withdraw. But you've been able to express what you believe, you've been able to express what's important to you. And this moves you closer to integrity, closer to identity integration. The fact is we often have to do things that we don't want to do.

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But if we can express ourselves in healthy ways, we are more likely to feel authentic about it, even if we have to do something we don't want to do. I think the most important part of exercising integrity in the moment of choice is first to recognize the surrounding togetherness pressure. Like I said, this is easy in a work situation where you're being told what to do, but oftentimes the pressures are more subtle. Sometimes the pressure isn't even coming from others, but you're feeling it inside through a sense of obligation or a need to get along, which makes you feel surrounding togetherness pressure internally. The more time you have to think and respond intentionally, the better able you will be able to exercise integrity in the moment of choice. You've probably heard me say this before, but Stephen Covey, who wrote the book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, calls this widening the gap between stimulus and response. When you are feeling surrounding togetherness pressure, the more quickly you act, the less likely you will be to self-differentiate to exercise integrity in the moment of choice. One helpful response is to say I need some time to think about this.

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Can I get back to you? If that's not possible, you can respond by saying, I'm uncomfortable with this. What other options are there that are available? In either case, a healthy response is going to be expressing what you believe while showing the other that you care about them and you care about the mission of the organization. This is why reactivity such as getting defensive or argumentative is not helpful because it reduces emotional connection. I find one helpful question to ask myself is what am I willing to live with in this situation? While there may be some instances that are binary, that it's all or nothing, you either have to do it or not, I think there are many, many instances where you can actually negotiate something that might be closer to what you believe in or at least give you a chance to work through to a place where you feel less inauthentic. And I will close with this reminder. Remember that most of us are able to self differentiate only about a third of the time. So if we can create more space between stimulus and response, if we can think about what we really want, and if we can figure out a way to express that in a healthy way without creating a conflict of wills while remaining emotionally connected, we have a better chance of increasing that third of the time to perhaps half of the time.

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What that also means is that we want to be able to give ourselves a break when we aren't able to self differentiate when we do feel inauthentic, because that is likely to happen more often than not. My own belief, even though it is not backed up by research, is that if we are able to have self compassion, even though we may feel inauthentic, we will be less likely to fall victim to immoral behavior. From my viewpoint, the church isn't any less likely to see pastors or leaders break trust or do immoral things. What I do believe is if you are more in tune with how inauthenticity works and what damage it can do, you will be better able to manage it to self-differentiate and to remain a nonanxious presence. That's it for episode 212. You can find the show notes at thenonanxiousleader/212, and you can connect with me at jack@christian-leaders.com. Until next time, thanks and goodbye.