I recently received an e-mail from a Leadership in Ministry Workshops participant asking about the distinction between role and function often made in Bowen Family Systems Theory (BFST). This distinction is often difficult for folks to make, but I think it’s simple a matter of defining and delineating terms and concepts. Here’s my thinking on this and my explanation (I’ll count on other readers to provide a corrective if I’m not clear on this): generally speaking functions are specific to one’s position in the system, roles are negotiable and interchangeable. Functions have to do more with emotional process, while roles have more to do with management of systemic relationships.
Here is one example: In a biological family system structure a male is father and provides certain functions that only a father can. If that biological father dies or leaves the system he cannot be simply “replaced” by another male. Similarly with the mother in the family. She provides certain functions in the family that dad cannot. And if she leaves the system (through death or separation) another woman cannot replace her emotional process function.
One of the problems with blended families is that the new parent(s) in the reconstituted family confuse function with role. You cannot replace the emotional function of a biological parent—but you can renegotiate the role(s) the new parent will take in the new family. The “first” dad will always be dad, regardless of how people may want to think about the replacement dad. It’s why people can have lifelong “issues” with biological parents—even if they’ve never known them. It’s not surprising that issues around a “replacement mom” are more intense, especially if the new mom insists on providing the function of “real mom” rather than negotiate a new parent-child role relationship in the family.
Another example: In a family roles can be negotiated. So, in one particular family the mother may take on the role of being the “breadwinner” while the dad stays home to be the “homemaker.” But their (emotional process) FUNCTIONS in the family do not change. Mom is still mom and Dad is still dad. And, on any given year they may switch roles (dad gets a job, mom decides to stay home), but their emotional process function in the family constellation remains the same.
In a congregational system the dynamic plays itself out in similar but not always parallel ways. I like to say it this way, “A system understands the functions it need of its leaders, and the system expects and needs the leader (and not someone else) to provide those functions.”
The most dramatic example is that of the function of vision. Systems expect and need vision to come from the person in the “L position,” the leader. If the leader defects in place and does not provide vision the system gets anxious, and sometimes, “lost.” And if another person (a staff person, second chair, or a deacon for example) tries to provide “vision” the systems gets anxious, confused, and often reactive. Vision is a function of leadership—and the vision for the system resides in the position (not the personality) of the leader.
I’ve recently had a job change that’s put me in the second chair position. In interviews with groups in the organization about my “role” they asked what my vision was. I had to tell them that vision was not my function, it belonged elsewhere, with the first chair. It was interesting to see the nods of comprehension in the room once that distinction was made. And later, in a conversation with the first chair the topic came up. The first chair mentioned how important my vision would be to the job. I had to clarify that my function, given my position in the system, was to get clear about the GOALS I would articulate for the institution, but that the vision was something the first chair needed to provide. (I talk more about the “how” of vision in The Hidden Lives of Congregations, so I won’t go into it here).
I think the reason it’s important to delineate between function and role is that doing so helps us interpre emotional process dynamics better than when we stay fuzzy about those concepts.
