Answering Your Call to Shamanism

If I have learned anything from studying the academics I call intellectual shamans it is that we each have our own path to follow. The intellectual (and other types of) shamans might not describe it this way, but it is clear from reviewing their life histories that they all answered a ‘call’ to do the work that they ended up doing. They had to, as I put it in the book, ‘become fully who they were.’ So, too, you need to become fully who you are in answering your own call.

Becoming fully who you are is probably a lifelong quest for most of us. It is not always an easy path, in that our own call may not take us along expected routes. Our call may guide away from traditional paths or careers, or somehow prevent us from following all the implicit and sometime explicit ‘rules’ that seem to guide many people in their career and life choices. Answering the call means delving deeply into whatever passions and purposes drive us. It can mean being willing to take a sometimes risky path towards achieving those purposes and passions. It definitely means doing what we are called to do and not necessarily what others want us to do. Doing so is not always the most lucrative route. It is not always what our parents, mentors, siblings, and friends want us to do. Following our calling can sometimes take us to some pretty weird (but fulfilling) places.

It is all too easy for others to try to impose their expectations, dreams, and desires on us, hoping that somehow we will fulfill their dreams, expectations, and desires. I see these expectations all the time in my home field of academia, where doctoral students are apprenticed into the same norms, values, and aspirations that their mentors may have for themselves. In today’s academic world, there are often clear expectations for the nature, type, and number of publications that a successful academic will achieve, at least in my field of management. Deviating from these expectations by, for example, focusing on excellence in teaching or emphasizing management practice or consulting, puts a young scholar outside the normal set of expectations for a successful academic career.

Expectations for many academics are rather narrowly construed these days. To be ‘successful’ as a scholar, for example, in my field of management increasingly requires publishing (a lot) in top tier journals, paying relatively less attention to teaching and, indeed, even the practice of management. This path is a difficult enough one, of course, even if that is the path to which you are called.

Yet the truth is that for some scholars, either the questions they ask or the answers they seek in their research, publishing, and teaching, do not necessarily lie in traditional or expected paths. Or perhaps they may wish to follow more of a teaching or consulting route than a research-intensive path. The same can be true for people in other walks of life, who might not want to follow the guidance of others or normal expectations, but might instead want to carve out their own niche, their own creative outlets, their own approaches to business, work, and life.

Yes, some management academics want, say, to become a great teacher rather than a scholar. Or they might want to work in consultation with people who actually practice leading and managing, rather than just studying and writing about it. They might actually want to lead or manage themselves. Or they may be called to write for an audience that goes beyond scholars. For these people, the calling that they hear is something different from what ‘everyone’ expects of them. I am sure that similar expectations exist in all ways of life, whether it is becoming a doctor, an engineer, an accountant, a technician, an artist, or a teacher, just to name a few possible paths. The question that must be asked is ‘whose calling is this?’ If it is truly yours, then it makes all kinds of sense to follow that path. If it is someone else’s, however, imposed on you, then you need to dig deeply to find out what your actual calling is.

For many of these people, I believe, following that internal call to do what is best for them will ultimately turn out to be what is best for the world. But to follow that call, you need the internal strength, indeed courage, to take the risks that are associated with following a different from the expected path—even of being different themselves from your colleagues or co-workers.

Yes, I see these types of expectations all the time in academic life—and they exist in most other walks of life as well. Indeed, I too have been guilty of imposing my expectations on doctoral students instead of letting them go, letting them fly free as a suddenly uncaged bird might. Freed from my expectations, they need to find their own path to career and life satisfaction. In the end, however, we can each only answer our own call—at least if we hope to lead a happy and fulfilled life.

There are two key insights here. Letting go of your expectations of others is difficult at best. Letting go of others’ expectations of you is even harder. In the end, however, we must all find our own paths—I would argue to becoming the best shaman that we can so that we can do whatever work it is that we are called to do to help heal the world.

Further Reading

Sandra Waddock, Intellectual Shamans: Management Academics Making a Difference. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge, 2015.