KNOWING ABOUT THE SIX ARCHETYPES of personal growth can certainly help us to understand our own lives, and in previous columns I've given many examples of this.

What I'd like us to think about here is that it can also guide us through the workplace - where we will certainly meet people at many different levels of competence and awareness. In fact, one's workplace may at first sight be distinctly puzzling. Why is it that some employers have managers who are so cautious and who lack vision? Why do some of the best new employees leave some firms so soon? And then there's the tricky question of how a company can be run to bring out the best in all the employees, and not just reward the favored few?

In my counseling work I come across intelligent people every day who wrestle with these questions, not just because they are systems analysts but because they are asking, in a fundamental sense: who am I when I'm at work? Behind this lurks another question - is it alright to be myself?

To understand this situation we need to take a look at the employee's experience as she joins the workforce, and we'll need to do so in terms of the six archetypes.

When we arrive at a new job we are always, to some extent, Innocents, and we can be misled when our unsuspecting nature is exploited. We tend to be roped into doing things that are actually other people's work, and we don't yet know enough to refuse their manipulations. After a short while we begin to see that this marvelous new workplace is not perfect, and we begin to look around for someone we can latch onto, who can guide and even protect us.

When we do this we become Orphans, and just as some adoptions are successful and others not, so we see people settling into the protective power structure they have accepted (or, sometimes, rebelling against it). This may show itself as malicious gossip, backstabbing, passive-aggressive behaviors, and so on. Some people stay at this level their whole lives. Discontented Orphans are those who tend to move from company to company, always at about the same level, always finding things to complain about, often blaming the previous employer for their situation.

A few brave souls begin to see that there might be a better way of doing things and become Pilgrims, as they seek to answer questions about themselves, their workplace, and their overall careers. This can be a lonely time for many people, since in order to find what they need to do they have to question the status quo, reject the existing orthodoxy, and sometimes this causes them to be perceived as troublemakers. Pilgrims often leave or are fired for being too disruptive, which is great pity since they have within them the seeds of what will, one day, make their workplace far better.

When the Pilgrim employee finds what he or she really feels is important in a career then that person becomes a Warrior-Lover, determined to fight peacefully for what she believes. Sometimes this person is perceived by others as a sort of crusader, always leading the charge. Pilgrims don't like this, and Orphans feel threatened by it, and this can lead to disagreements in the conference room. Yet the wise boss will be able to see this as a stage, and one that can be very productive, for this person is not lacking in courage and drive. Unfortunately for all Warriors the risk of burn-out is immense, since there are always more battles to be fought. Burn-out, though, is not an end point if one is prepared to see it as a time of reassessment. The Warrior-Lover who nears exhaustion has to realize that productive work is not about being a one-person army. It's about using the energy to work together cooperatively, and taking the courage that she surely and using it in a different way, by trusting, by delegating, by stepping back.

Just as the bemedaled veteran of the trenches can at a certain point be better employed as a trainer or a manager, so can this archetype be better used in roles where she can inspire others to work as part of a coherent unit. This is the emerging Monarch archetype. And just as an actual Monarch has to hand tasks off to others, and know which others to trust, so does this archetype. This is the boss we all love, because she will give us a task and then step back and not micro-manage. Under this trusting guidance every employee has the opportunity to become self-motivated. Everyone can access his or her own energy and bring it freely to the task. The Monarch boss actually welcomes the questioning, restless Pilgrim, because questions are always useful and can lead to innovation. Similarly the Warrior-Lovers are cherished for their energy, and the Monarch will make sure they are not used in tasks that will dull them, exhaust them, or lead to burn-out. The Monarch boss nurtures the employees for the sake of the success of the company as a whole, and not for her own prestige or for a short term financial gain.

Eventually the Monarch boss knows she must hand over to the next generation, and she'll groom possible successors based on their merit, not on some misplaced dynastic sense. At this point, as she gives more and more power away, the Monarch can effect a highly productive and peaceful transition of power - and she becomes a Magician. The magic is that those who are nominally 'under' her are, in fact, all working from a sense their own best motivations for ends that are not purely selfish. It's a different model of management, where the welfare of employees and of society as a whole are weighed as more valuable than the profit margins or the share price. It is, in fact, a whole new way of doing business, and relies upon sustainability, not quick profits. It may just be the model we need to consider for doing business in future.

The six archetypes are visible anywhere one chooses to look, and perhaps they are never more obvious than in the workplace where some employees glory in 'ranks' and titles that do not match their actual abilities. Understanding how the archetypes can work when at their best can be extremely useful if one happens to be employed by a company that is confused or chaotic.

In my counseling practice many people talk about the bewildering and depressing experience of working in such places, since they know something is wrong, yet they assume that it's their own failure to 'know the system' that's at fault. They blame themselves, and feel even less capable than before. Well, a company may be big and it may be highly profitable, but that doesn't mean it's either healthy or humane. It doesn't mean that it knows how to get the best out of its employees, either.

The language of archetypes gives us a way to see what's happening, and so it gives us a chance to make sure we work in the situation that is the best match for what we need as we grow in our work.

© Dr. Allan Hunter, 2009

Dr Allan Hunter has two books on Archetypes:
Stories We Need To Know (Findhorn Press)
and The six Archetypes of Love: From Innocent to Magician (Findhorn Press).

Visit www.allanhunter.net or www.sixarchetypes.com to find out more.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Allan Hunter was born in England in 1955 and completed all his degrees at Oxford University, emerging with a doctorate in English Literature in 1983. His first book was Joseph Conrad and the Ethics of Darwinism. In 1986, after working at Fairleigh Dickinson University's British campus and at Peper Harow Therapeutic Community for disturbed adolescents, he moved to the US. For the past twenty years he has been a professor of literature at Curry College in Massachusetts, and a therapist. He has produced two books specifically aimed at using writing and drawing exercises therapeutically - The Sanity Manual and Life Passages. Both books are based on his revolutionary interactive writing exercises, tried and proven in counselling sessions and classes. While working with clients in this way he began to uncover the presence of a series of archetypes within their writings. This led to his present work with the formulation of the six archetypal stages of spiritual development.

Four years ago he began teaching with the Blue Hills Writing Institute and he has remained with it ever since, working with students to explore the memoir and life-writing. His own experience of this medium is reflected in From Coastal Command to Captivity; The Memoir of a Second World War Airman, a project on which he worked with his father up to the time of his death. It required extensive reworking to bring this memoir to completion. As in all his books, the emphasis is on the healing nature of the stories we weave for ourselves if we choose to connect to the archetypal tales of our culture.