the art of growing up: kegan’s theory of adult development
I’m Connie, founder of Tandem and an executive coach who helps clients extend their emotional runway. Kegan’s theory of adult development gives a framework for how you can build resilience, in your life and in your work.
After studying engineering at MIT, I decided to become a teacher. It was something that I was very excited about but also a bit ashamed about. It was lower pay than my classmates were getting, it didn’t require the engineering degree I had worked so hard for, it was an atypical choice that I felt like I needed to justify. But I didn’t yet have the words to explain why I was making this decision. It felt hard to articulate — all I knew was I wanted to. There was a feeling inside me that I wanted to teach, and I didn’t want to have to justify it to everyone else. I was frustrated enough to the point that I wanted to end any career conversation with: “Because I want to!”
Instead, I ended up in tiring debates with my parents about why I refused to value money, in awkward chats with well-meaning but confused friends about why I was leaving engineering, but also in energizing conversations with my future boss about my visions for my classroom.
I felt like a rubber band, being pulled in two directions. On one side was the excitement of doing something that felt very aligned to me. On the other was saying goodbye to former views I valued.
Enter adult development theory.
It wasn’t until years later that I was introduced to Robert Kegan’s work on adult development theory at the Harvard Kennedy School, and everything clicked into place. Turns out, this feeling of being stretched is grounded in the research behind how we become adults. It is not through buying a house and getting a job that we grow up, but from finding out who we uniquely are and sticking with it. It’s about developing an independent lens through which to view and interpret the world.
How we develop an independent world view is also commonly misconceived. It does not come from acquiring more knowledge. It comes from transforming the system through which we process knowledge. In other words, we have to change how we make sense of information coming in, not increase the amount of information coming in. That’s why we can read all the self-help books in the world, and never change. If the processing system remains the same, the behaviors will also remain the same.
Kegan proposed three stages of processing systems that adults can reach. Each represents a different way in which adults make meaning. Most adults reach the socialized stage (58%), some reach the self-authoring stage (34%), and a small percentage evolve to the self-transforming stage (1%).
A socialized adult follows external rules to guide their life.
The socialized stage is when you define yourself by the rules others set for you. That means you get the expected job, you find the expected partner, and you act the expected way. Sometimes that’s because you truly are just aligned with the rules, especially if you are part of a dominant culture that defined those rules in the first place. Sometimes it’s because you are not aligned, but have trouble hearing that internal voice or it’s dangerous to listen to that internal voice. You’re faced with a choice: listen to the little voice inside that contradicts the louder voice outside, or tell it to hush and stay within the boundaries that have been defined for you. Socialized adults decide how to act through rules they learn externally that define what is right and wrong. Following the rules they are given is important because they define themselves by how others see them. For example, a thought like “My parents think I’m not ambitious” becomes analogous in a socialized mind to “I am not ambitious.”
A self-authoring adult defines their own rules.
Progressing from “I am what they think” to “I am what I think” is the next stage of development — the self-authoring mind. That’s when you start to question whether the rules and beliefs you grew up with are really serving you. You start to doubt the voices that tell you what you are “supposed to” do. A lot of the philosophies of coaching are built around addressing this inner conflict. Different camps call it different things. Whether you’re talking about your saboteurs, your internal family system, your inner critic, your gremlin, or your enneagram shadow side, this inner conflict between one way of being and another is a shared experience across the world of self-knowledge and transformation. Being able to engage with this inner conflict instead of silencing it or exploding from it is the art of growing up. Sometimes addressing that inner conflict results in changes you make in your life that don’t align with the rules of your community. Relationships are put on the line in order to risk marching by your own beat. You put at stake your sense of belonging for a chance at becoming.
A self-transforming adult knows there are no rules.
A very rare few (1%) reach the self-transforming mind. These people are marching to their own beat, unapologetic about who they are, and non-judgmental that others are still on their own journey. They’re able to see that all decisions or perspectives are not black and white. To them, there are no rules to follow, just inner knowing. And instead of begrudging past rules or communities that hurt them, they’re able to see what was beautiful about those ways of being. They are in a state similar to what Buddhists call nirvana, a state of inner knowing and peace.
We are stuck between trying to fit in and be ourselves.
Kegan gives a framework to contextualize a very strong push and pull that many feel in adulthood — whether to fit in and follow the rules, or be ourselves and pave our own path. Balancing between the two is that feeling of being stretched, of having to make a choice between two strong forces. Every time you make a choice because you want to rather than because others want you to, you become that much more “adult” and able to withstand conflicting needs.
And a world of people who can tolerate this stretch is a better world. When we don’t answer our calls to becoming, we experience a dissonance that drains us. This dissonance manifests as midlife crises or depression or burnout. Alternatively, in a world of self-authoring and self-transforming adults, people experience the immediate discomfort of change, but the long-term benefit of resilience. A world of self-authoring adults is a world of better leaders who can withstand disappointment and difficulty. It’s a world of people who are more principled in their relationships rather than just trying to people-please their way through. It’s a world of people who take risks for their dreams because they know the reward of becoming more self-actualized is worth it.
But it is not easy to take the path of self authorship. Everyone can tolerate some deviation from the mean, but too much and it feels like you’re going to snap. Like a rubber band, the further you pull away, the harder it gets. That tension could be caused by a whole host of decisions: pursuing a non-standard career, relationship, way of living, choice, etc. You’re stretched to see the world in a different way than you’ve seen it before, often without others accompanying you on that journey. It can feel very lonely. Coaching and communities that support your new beliefs or practices become important spaces to process making a controversial move, disappointing people you love, and continuing to stay your ground against opposition. Coaching and community help you become more elastic. They give you permission to change.
There’s a trend in the type of people who come to coaching. It’s often people who are actively transitioning between one of Kegan’s stages to another. They’re trying to pull away from expectations and define their own path. Or they’re leading an organization where things are growing fast and they’re not sure they can keep up, but they know they have to shed some of the old ways of doing things. It’s a scary feeling.
What’s most important in these moments of transformation is doing it alongside people you trust. Changing your self-concept is a vulnerable process. Having support during this transition period can make it less of a trade-off between being yourself or fitting in. Coaching and community become critical holding spaces where transformation can occur. You can choose to be yourself, because you have an anchor in the new state you are becoming.
My passion is creating spaces where it is safe to transform.
As a coach, a community builder, and a former teacher, I am passionate about designing spaces where it is safe to transform from socialized thinking to self authorship.
Coaching is a space where clients can share dreams they’ve never spoken out loud before. In one of my favorite coaching sessions, a client barely whispered: “I want to be the next Brené Brown.” The string of objections came tumbling out right after: “But how would I even? She is incredible. I am not that.”
“But it is still a valid dream.” I replied.
Holding the space for people to transform in Coaching Corner has been similarly fulfilling. As a community of coaches, almost all the members made the vulnerable decision to step off the corporate ladder to become a coach. It is scary to navigate away from the standard career path and pave your own way. Many honest stories, tears, pep talks, and a-ha moments have been shared in our corner of the internet, because it is alongside people who get it. It is a community of people also on their own journey of becoming.
And as a teacher, I knew I wouldn’t feel fulfilled if my students only left with more knowledge. I wanted to fundamentally shift how they saw themselves. I wanted them to leave knowing their ideas mattered and that they could change the world. I didn’t care what skills they learned, but what mindset they held onto afterwards.
Looking back on my own post-college career decision, there were signs of a transformation-in-progress as I decided between engineering and teaching. I was willing to stand my ground, but I didn’t yet have the skills to help others understand my new perspective or engage in the inevitable conflict around it. But the plates were shifting. I had a self-concept that differed from the one handed to me, and I acted on it.
As we grow up, we find more of our self along the way. When we gather up those pieces, and gain the courage to stand by our ever-transforming definition of self, we cement ourselves as an adult. We remain the same person, but capable of so much more.
