Agency. This word has recently been on my mind – not in reference to a business or organization, or a contractual term. I’m thinking of human agency in what Wikipedia defines as “the capacity of individuals to have the power and resources to fulfill their potential.” Agency in this context is a sociological construct and the Wikipedia article goes on to describe it as “one’s independent ability to act on one’s will.” For me to have agency over my life is to feel control in my ability to influence my thoughts and behavior as well as handle the situations that confront me.

Our sense of agency is a massive factor in our ability to flourish. It is a reflection of how we view our power to affect and respond to things in our lives and underpins how our internal pendulum swings from a sense of empowerment to one of helplessness. In many ways, the frustrations that so often bog us down are born of feelings of low agency, low control and influence, in our lives. Here, we can become victims of our circumstance, caught in a state of helplessness that can lead to hopelessness.

Social scientists pursue such concepts in an effort to explain and work to ameliorate their consequences across groups of people, but I want to focus on its implications for those of us who lead in the context of our responsibility for those around us. Whether we lead in business, healthcare, education, government, our community, or in our home, there are a group of human beings around us who belong to us. Of course, I’m not referring to possession, I’m talking about dominion, a responsibility to and active role in their wellbeing. There are clearly degrees here, but each of us holds a sacred duty to help steward those who are ours to a higher degree of flourishing – a place where they are fully alive in the proper stewardship of their own gifts.

Responsibility and Gradualness

This responsibility is easy to see with our children. Following the arc of their development, we see the gradualness of their growth and development and are clear on our role which is to protect and guide them to a self-sufficient adulthood. We are imbued with the instinct to love and support our children, so it is easy to accept the responsibility to help them flourish. We also possess much of their agency, assuming it completely early-on and then gradually releasing it to them as they mature.

The stewardship and flourishing game becomes far more challenging with our adult child, who we clearly have all the right answers for, and may at times seem unable to find them. With our children, we are moving along our own road of gradualness as we relinquish (often reluctantly) their agency to them. Our role shifts from complete control to less control and finally to where we are not answering, not doing, not assuming agency for them, but guiding, assisting, and anticipating…always meeting them where they are.

What about the others who might be ours? We have ongoing roles in the stewardship of many people throughout our lives. We see this clearly in the development of their functional capabilities. Our responsibility may lie in helping them gain the needed skills or in applying those skills most effectively. But human formation, and flourishing, goes much deeper than skills and adulthood is no magical point of arrival. The journey has just begun.

The whole person must function in many spheres through a lifetime. Who they are matters…who they become matters. We have a role to play for those in our lives. Both our direct dominion as well as those we meet along the way. For those who are ours, what are we doing to foster their complete development? Do we see the whole person? The physical being before us is only the tip of the iceberg. They are also intellectual, emotional, and spiritual beings. They are sharing a journey with us.

Responsibility and Utility

In our brave new world of artificial intelligence, a great danger lies in its power to foster a more utilitarian view of others. As AI begins to seem more and more human, we are being trained to expect humans to behave similarly to our demands. This movement might begin to further dull our sense of responsibility to others in both charity, and perhaps more subtly in how we guide and mentor. By its nature, a utility is self-serving and more human sounding artificial servants will further erode the moral boundaries we hold in valuing the person as well as our sense of responsibility to them. We must be on guard against this.

We belong to each other. Some more than others. In these communities of belonging – families, schools, workplaces, neighborhoods, churches, towns, clubs – we have a responsibility to one another. There is a sacred duty to the other, both to see the divine spark within as well as to help them along their own journey of gradualness to becoming fully alive – to flourishing. It is an assistive, supportive, function we play and we are designed to have great influence in the growth of others which is ultimately about their ability to flourish in full agency of their own existence. They are ours, not in a possessive way, but as a sacred imperative – a duty born of love in willing their final good.

This is difficult because we must allow them to grow into it and remember that they are ours, not in a gripping, controlling way, but in an open-handed, releasing fashion. A hand always ready to be grasped but never grasping. Stewardship of this sort is born of presence and influence. The place where who we are and how we are being manifest as the central forms of our power to make a difference. Open-handed influence becomes the deft art of humanity applied and released in the right places, at the right times, with the right amount of pressure.

Responsibility and Mystery

And so we go, passing it forward as best we can; catching and releasing in unequal measures, as we all stumble along our own journey of growth. The wisdom we gain in snippets, shared unevenly and incompletely, as our own vision of the world shifts in our becoming. But our imperfect apprenticeship is meant to be shared and the world around us is hungry for the few loaves and fishes we bring to it, waiting to be multiplied in their giving. What a beautiful design.

Look around you today. Each of those faces looking back is yours…in some fashion. The call to that face may be casual courtesy or kindness; it may also be loving patience and looking beyond the disappointment. The call may be to see the divine spark within and gently blow on it, fueling it to flame, or it may be to call that human being to more, not because they failed or you need them to get it right, but because you see something more in them than they may even see. It may simply be holding a hand while the tears flow or reminding them of their own duty to the other. But all these are yours, for a moment or for a lifetime. Not yours for you, but yours for them, and your great gift is the unseen becoming within yourself as you give the gift away

With a bit of reflection, we find that this great mystery, and great responsibility, is really not so mysterious. Looking more closely, we find that our flourishing, and sense of agency in our own life, grows correspondingly with our ability to help those who are ours, with theirs.