TOPIC 12: GROUPS AND LEADERSHIP by Onder

You can change a job you don’t like and resign from a volunteer organization, but you cannot trade your family for another one or stop participating in family activities.  At least, you must endure a lot more stress or abuse before dropping out of the family.  This is because your family is your “in” group, and the values that apply to your relationship with the family are quite different than those that apply to “out” groups.  Of course, the family values vary between cultures.  In agrarian societies the greater family must live and work together without regard to individual preferences of the family members, as maintaining the unity of the farmland has utmost importance for all family members.  In societies like the one we live in, where the interdependency between family members is not that significant for the wellbeing of the individuals, the membership in the family group is more voluntary and drop-outs, although rare, can and do happen.

I feel that the appropriate leadership style within the family group is different than in a workplace and it changes with time as well as with circumstances.  One difference from the workplace is that within the family strong and conflicting emotions are usually in play, such as love, jealousy, competition for attention, feeling of neglect, feeling of not being respected, etc.  Over the years, I have recognized that keeping the “harmony” within the immediate and greater family is very important.  Without harmony, the mutual moral support function of the family would not work.  So, I have become a lot more relaxed, tolerant, and permissive and a lot less assertive in my dealings with the family.  I ignore many things that would have bothered me before, avoid arguments about politics and religion, and refrain from giving advice without being asked.  On the other hand, I do keep in mind my responsibility to interfere if and when something of serious nature happens.  For example, I would definitely not keep quiet if I see a family member getting involved with drugs. 

Some holiday gatherings are happier than others.  This Thanksgiving we did not have the whole family together as one of us is about to have a serious surgery and we did not want to take any chances with exposing him to flu or common cold.  We are counting on having the whole family together again next Thanksgiving, and we will make sure that the turkey is the biggest one ever.