We then turn briefly to the broader consideration of the social-economic structure of a society and the important interplay between social-class and generativity. While professional coaches are not primarily in the business of reforming society, they are in the business of helping their clients face the realities of social class and privilege. We conclude with our own thoughts about the nature of a generative society and generativity-focused coaching—gaining insights from the generative women and men we interviewed during the Sage project.
Shaping Generativity
In their introductory chapter, de St. Aubin, McAdams and Kim (2004, p. 5) propose that: “Generativity is shaped by political, economic, religious and cultural forces. Furthermore, it makes good sense to consider how social institutions themselves, and even societies writ large, may or may not function in generative ways.” Like fellow observers of social structure and personal character in their description of the “good society” (Robert Bellah and others, 1991), de St. Aubin, McAdams and Kim describe the conditions needed to encourage and maintain generativity and to overcome what another insightful social observer (Christopher Lasch) identifies as a “culture of narcissism.” (Lasch, 1991).
In their search for the ingredients to be found in a generative society, McAdams and Logan (2004, p. 18) turn to a distinction first offered by Bakan (1966) between agency and communion. On the one hand, generativity is all about extending the influence and appearance of one’s self beyond one’s death. This resides at the heart of generativity. It is about the search for immortality first identified by Plato and much more recently by John Kotre (1984) (as we note in our previous essays). This embrace of generativity is internally-generated – what we have identified as proximal Push.
Conceived as a search for immortality, generativity is aligned with agency: “the organismic tendency toward self-expression, self-expansion, self-protection, self-development, and all other goals promoting the individual self.” (McAdams and Logan, 2004, p. 18) and, in its extreme, We find this generative agency to often hover on the edge of narcissism—a condition of which professional coaches should be aware (Weitz, 2013) More generally, this intimate Push toward immortality is a source of individualism and the kind of self-absorption which Lasch critiqued more than two decades ago—and which still seems relevant.
While many of the generativity examples we have offered in this set of essays are founded on this self-oriented agency, we propose along with McAdams and Logan that generativity (as displayed through all four roles) can only be sustained if agency is counter-balanced with communion: “the organismic tendency toward the self with others, merging the self in community, giving up the self for the good of something beyond the self.” (McAdams and Logan, 2004, p. 18) It is this further extension of self in time and space which enables us to be fully capable of caring deeply.
This extension should be a major agenda item for a professional coach who is helping their client appreciate their own generative actions. We need agency to move beyond mere empathy. We need communion to see how caring must be viewed from what we previously identified as seeing the “big picture” when engaging in caring activities. Furthermore, we propose, along with McAdams and Logan, that the successful interplay between agency and communion requires that one is participating in a generative society. Our clients can either seek out such a society or can help build it in their own organization or community.
To focus more specifically, we note throughout McAdams and Logan’s The Generative Society book, attention turns to all four generative roles-even if not specifically identified as such.
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