I’ve always considered myself a lifelong learner. If I could pay to go back to college just to sit in on lectures – any lectures – I would. There’s something deeply satisfying about learning for the sake of learning. It’s not just professional development; it’s personal curiosity.

In our work at Iridium, we feel a responsibility to keep learning. Not just to revisit the same theories over and over, but to go deeper. Human behavior is complex, and if we’re going to offer something rich and well thought-out to our clients, we need to keep studying. That’s why I train too.

One of the programs I’ve found especially valuable is the Professional Training Program at the Vermont Center for Family Studies. It’s grounded in Bowen family systems theory, which has been a foundational part of our work for the last 15 years. Here are a few reasons I continue to dig deeper into this theory:

• There’s a real effort to ground the study of human behavior in science.
• It starts with the emphasis of the “system” (i.e. family, work team) and the connectivity within it.
• The reality of anxiousness in the system is normalized. Automatic anxious reactivity is part of just being human.
• Individual behaviors are seen within the context of the system; it’s like a lens to watch myself and others. And these behaviors are very predictable.
• Once I start to see my own and others’ behaviors, I can then be more deliberate in my responses.
• Because of the connectivity of the system, when I raise my own functioning, it helps raise the functioning of the whole group.

These are just a few reasons that I find this theory helpful and more mature than some other approaches.

Several leading thinkers in this space who’ve written books are Michael Kerr (more academic), Kathleen Smith, and Roberta Gilbert. They’re worth checking out.

Leadership happens within the context of relationships. Bad relationships make for bad life and work experiences. In fact, most psychologists would say that the quality of our lives is directly correlated to the quality of our relationships. Bowen theory helps give me the tools to make the best of these. That’s why I keep digging deeper.