Archetypes Pattern
An Essential Pattern mapping the most common participant archetypes influencing transformation across a social entity.
The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.
Carl Jung1
Challenge: How can you identify principal participant archetypes in a social entity in a fluid, flexible and non-judgemental way to foster better engagement in a transformation?
Cluster: Participant Practice Patterns
Type: Essential Practice Pattern
Purpose
The purpose of the Archetypes Pattern is to assist practitioners and participants to identify, map and understand the most common human archetypes influencing transformation in a social entity.
Pattern Description
This Archetypes Pattern describes the cognitive variety represented by people in a social entity and sparks practitioner and participant observation and sensemaking to identify and understand interrelated related patterns of behaviour and influence. It is closly aligned with the Worldview Pattern - effectively categorizing the most commone worlviews in a social entity.
All people exhibit cognitive fluidity in adopting and expressing patterns of behaviour at any given time and in any given context. We may perform in many different roles at once depending on who we interact with or the nature of the practice context. For example, we may be innovators in one context and resisters in another. We may be a gatekeeper in certain circumstances, and a repository in others. We may be connectors in one context, and an opinion leader in another.
Archetypes, then, are universal patterns of human cognition, worldview and behaviour across space, time and context. They have been included in the Archetypes Pattern drawing on the concept of a human archetype from Jungian psychology as inspiration, and adapted for the realities of working with people in contemporary social settings. The use of archetypes here is unlike the widely-used concepts of “personas” in Design Thinking; “mindsets” in positive psychology; or “personality types” in the Myer-Briggs system, which tend to oversimplify cognitive and behavioural difference, limiting transformation.2
The Elementals of the Archetypes Pattern represent the emergent organizational behaviour patterns of people in concert with others across the structure of a social entity, as a dynamic expression of the current state of the individual leading to greater understanding of the current state of the social entity, by practitioners and participants alike. As with Jungian archetypes, the archetypes described in the Elementals can be fluid within the individual.
The Elementals in theis Pattern are not meant to be exhaustive: they describe 24 commonly-observed patterns in organizational, network, community, institutional, project and team settings. In any practice context, other archetypes may surface through observation and sensemaking. The prime practitioner approach to archetypes should be to maintain observation and sensemaking for other manifestations of the human psyche and its emergent patterns of behaviour, then taking steps to amplify or dampen their effects to maintain alignment with the purpose of the transformation.3
Elemental Patterns
Visionaries: Most organizations have vision statements, but very few visionaries. Visionaries are essential for the life and sustainability of organizations, as they see many possible paths forward, often before others see them. Visionaries are the ones that can spark a transformation because they are able to sensemake beyond their organization’s boundary to see drivers of change that are heading in from near and far, and they can visualize their potential impacts, positive and negative. In a transformation, the visionaries will be the “keepers of the flame” - the one’s that help to orient the effort during the course of transformation. They may be formal organizational leaders or they may be in advisory roles. However they manifest, they need to be present.
Leaders: Formal leaders exist in any social entity, and are generally responsible for making decisions and being accountable, within the narrow scope of the organization’s charter. But what happens when organization survival becomes dependent on its ability to adapt to drivers of change? Simply, the qualities that enable such people to reach these positions may be unsuited or maladapted for leading complex whole-of-organization sustainability transformations. Fortunately, many organizations may already have leaders with the capability and character to inspire and guide others to participate and contribute; and to navigate complex pathways to sustainability. Such leaders can be formal or informal leaders; and they can be distributed leaders: that is, located at any place in the organization. At the earliest stages of the activation of transformation, these leaders need to be identified and supported.
Followers: Leaders need followers - the people that do the real day-to-day work. In transformations, organizations need good, competent, inspired followers: ones that understand both the purpose of the transformation and its trajectory and play their part accordingly. In an organization, the followers-at-large represents the largest sensemaking and feedback network, especially because it includes those people at the further reaches of the network, where much of the interface with the wider world is experienced. Good followers are absolutely essential for a successful transformation.
Powerbrokers: Organizations inevitably form power structures, as there are many competing interests at stake. And where there is power, there are powerbrokers. Typically, powerbrokers are in the upper strata of an organizational hierarchy, so some level of powerbroking is to be expected. However, people can be attracted to power relationships outside of their formal job descriptions as a way to get things done or to prevent things from happening. When these power structures and their power brokers come together, it can be of benefit in a transformation; or it can be toxic. Understanding formal and informal powerbrokers and the way they use power is an important aspect of orienting, understanding and mapping in the early stages of activation.
Creators: Every organization needs creative people to foster innovation and organizational reinvention. Creative people can be design and innovation professionals or they can be people with a naturally creative approach to life. Organizational creators are important for the life of the organization as they are capable of framing a vision, generating ideas, and developing the ideas to make a vision real. As the process of activating, implementing, embedding and sustaining a transformation is fundamentally creative, it is important for practitioners to foster, support and amplify creativity wherever it manifests in the organization.
Innovators: Creation and innovation are complementary phenomena. Innovation is a broader process, including the processes of generation of innovation. Innovators are always seeking the new and making products, processes and services better. Innovators are essential for any organization, particularly in keeping abreast of innovation in the wider system. Existing innovator capability can also be applied to the transformation along with creator capability. Innovators may be easy to identify if an organization has a specialist innovation unit or department. In other cases, identifying people with innovator capability will contribute to the transformation.
Developers: Essential for the efficacy of innovators and creators, developers are effectively doing the hand-on work of design and innovation detailing while facilitating the diffusion of innovation throughout the organization. Developers may generally be recruited from technical and technical support departments within an organization - they may be highly creative within the narrow terms of their technical discipline. They should be included in the transformation as people that can be called on to provide advice and technical support to different activities at different phases.
Connectors: Highly connected people are essential for maintaining the flow of energy, motivation, communication and information in both the formal and informal networks of the social entity. Highly connected people have influence situated in their widespread respect as honest brokers, even if they don’t consciously act as influencers. Recognizing and supporting them is crucial to maintain transformation flow.
Opinion Leaders: As a category of highly connected people, opinion leaders exert influence on people in their networks: they can both be helpful and unhelpful. They may be part of the formal structure; they may act informally; or they may be a hybrid of both formal and informal. When they have no formal authority in the organization, their opinions will still hold great power. It is not only essential to identify them in a social entity early in a transformation, but also to recruit them to play a significant role. If ignored, their influence may proceed unchallenged and create negative impact.
Repositories: These are the ”go to” people, the holders of organizational memory. They know the history of how the current state was reached, and they know the stories of past successes and failures. The know where the knowledge is filed and can direct people to other knowledge holders. They can prevent reinventing of “wheels”. Also acting as honest brokers, they are always happy to help because, as long term employees or members, they usually have the social entity’s best interests at heart. The key is to ask.
Gatekeepers: Like the repositories, the gatekeepers may know the history and the rules, except they know that their knowledge gives them power, and they use it. Sharing organizational knowledge becomes highly conditional, and not only will it not be freely available to all, it can be used to prevent others achieving their goals. Gatekeepers can be dangerous for a transformation if they are not supportive. They must also be identified early in the transformation process, and invited into the heart of the effort. Social influence can be applied to encourage them to become repositories, and positive opinion leaders, not gatekeepers.
Resisters: Anyone can resist change - it’s a natural reaction, especially if people like things as they are. Further, people might be resisting change for very good reason, and may have perspectives that may be very useful for informing the flow of change. Empathy and understanding, especially in terms of recognizing their loyalties, losses and fears, is the best path to shift people from being resisters to active participants. This is even more important if they are highly connected opinion leaders.
Subverters: People can go beyond being mere resisters and may quietly engage in actions that negatively impact - or subvert - the process, while staying under the radar. Effectively, they have a stance of non-cooperation. If subverters are highly connected, they can recruit others to act similarly. Their aim is to see the change abandoned as unworkable, but not be negatively impacted by their own stance.
Disrupters: Being a disrupter is a more honest position than a subverter, and should be respected. These are people that may be supportive of the aim of change, but think there is a better way to achieve it; they may also think that the only way to change something is to actively disrupt it through sudden change. Disrupters don’t need to be identified - they will identify themselves and be upfront about their intentions. It is important for those holding the transformation, bring the disrupters into the circle, as they, like the resisters, may have different perspectives on the change and could transfer their energy towards becoming creators and innovators.
Wreckers: Many a change process has failed because of wreckers in the social entity. In their opposition to a change, some people go beyond being a resister, subverter or disrupter and become a wrecker: non-cooperation, personal attacks, divide and conquer actions, sabotage and roadblocks - anything to impede the process. In a business or organization, such actors can be identified and counselled; and if they persist, it may be time to part ways with them. If any formal leaders act as wreckers, the transformation may be under threat. In a network or community, it is so much harder to manage such people. Outside facilitation and conflict resolution may be the only path forward in such case.
Bystanders: Bystanders are everywhere and can be identified in any change process. They are mostly neutral about change proposals, being happy to go along with what ever emerges. In many instances, just leave them be: they may eventually self-select into action. However, for effective transformation, nudging bystanders into becoming active participants could have long-term benefits. Also be aware that some bystanders offer their opinions from the sideline; depending on how active they are on giving comments, or how vocal they become, they may become influencers negatively affecting progress. Be watchful for this particular behaviour pattern, as this change from bystander to influencer may go unnoticed, especially since their bystander status did not signal any negativity.
Early Adopters: In diffusion of innovation models, early adopters are adventurous people who like to keep up with social and/or technological change - and like to be seen as such. In an organization, early adopters stand out because they will be the first to volunteer to trial new software, technology and ways of doing things. In the design of a transformation, early adopters will be important participants as they will be more open to adopting new practices, after which they will be an important source of feedback, as well as being the people that will model the new behaviours and help to create new supporting cultures.
Late Adopters: As per the title, late adopters are late to the party. This does not mean they are resisters, subverters, disrupters or wreckers: they just need time to understand the new and to find ways to embed the new changes in their daily role. It is important, then, for practitioners to understand the difference, and do everything to encourage and support the late adopters. Once the new way has been well embedded in the change, late adopters behaviour can be modelled widely.
Enablers: Every social entity has well-respected people that help others beyond their job descriptions. These people are not just connectors - they are the connective tissue that fill the gaps in the body of an organization: the informal educators, empaths and sensemakers. Through self-motivation they will support the key practitioners and participants in diverse ways. Identifying them, briefing them and giving them permission to be active in promoting the aims of the transformation and sensing for feedback from the different parts of the social entity is another critical part of the transformation work.
Champions: Champions of change exist in organizations often before the formal leadership embarks on a transformation. Why? Because with their knowledge and experience, they can see the issues that need changing and the external conditions that need addressing. As soon as the change is flagged, those champions will reveal themselves and be keen to have an active role in promoting the change and becoming champions for specific areas of action or application, often within their area of expertise (which they may have not had a chance to practice). The sooner champions are identified and supported, the better for the transformation.
Individualists: We are all individuals, but some of us are more individual than others. Individualists can be found in any organization, network or community. They just do things differently, and in their own way. Some aspects of their work will be done at a minimum to satisfy work contracts, and in other aspects of their work they will be self-motivated to perform purely because of the self-satisfaction they gain from the activity, not because of any great commitment to organizational goals. In transformation, there may be some cross-over between the intrinsic motivation of an individualist and specific transformation activities. Such confluence can be great for both the individual and for the transformation. Practitioners should identify the individualists; look for coherence with transformation activities; and attract that energy of theirs to service.
Experts: Organizations are full of experts in different professional and technical domains; yet many experts do not have the inclination or capacity to work outside of their area of expertise. Furthermore, when leading a transformation, experts will tend to be lead by their expertise, and not by the needs of the change context. Even worse, they may impose a path that is inappropriate for the change, which fails to spark the motivation of people across the organization. Experts have their role in a transformation, so their energy and expertise must be applied appropriately.
Bureaucrats: Every organization needs bureaucrats to make sure that the things that need doing get done. This is particularly important in the world of laws, regulations, standards, codes and branding. A healthy bureaucracy is essential for a healthy organization. Bureaucracies, however, often overreach, especially in applying simplistic solutions to complex problems. However, too many decisions in organizations are made with heavy-handed bureaucratic control, strangling the life out of them and killing the flow of transformation. Quite simply, in a transformation, bureaucrats are there to serve and advise, not to create and innovate. The facilitators of transformation must be aware of this, and ensure bureaucrats maintain appropriate levels of service.
Technocrats: Technocrats are technical professionals and technicians that see that every human problem must have a technical solution. The more technical and arcane, the better. This leads technocrats to design solutions without consultation, imposing solutions without understanding: often making the situation worse, rather than better. Technocrats, at their most negative manifestation, see their work as superior and most users largely ignorant, and see no point in consulting with users about narrow technical issues let alone the big questions of transformation. Technocrats can dominate discourse to the detriment of the life of an organization, and their role in a transformation must be managed appropriately, while still retaining a voice as a participant.
Atlas Navigation
Go to the Elemental Patterns within the Archetypes Pattern:
Visionaries Leaders Followers Powerbrokers Creators Innovators Developers Connectors Opinion Leaders Repositories Gatekeepers Resisters Subverters Disrupters Wreckers Bystanders Early Adopters Late Adopters Enablers Champions Individualists Experts Bureaucrats Technocrats
Go to the Social Entity Pattern within the Participant Patterns Cluster
Go to the Worldview Pattern within the Participant Patterns Cluster
Version
Version 1.0 - 2 Jun 2024
Version 2 - 17 July 2025
Jung, C. G. (2020). Modern man in search of a soul. Routledge. p.24
Here be Dragons! I have been quite reticent about including this Archetypes Pattern in the Pattern Atlas - it is potentially dangerous because of the risk of it being applied literally in a linear, mechanistic way and it can easily revert to stereotyping individuals in a judgemental and fixed way. Or worse, to exclude and victimize. On reflection, I decided to keep it in, as I consider it useful when applied with self-reflective awareness, especially in helping to frame approaches to engaging people in transformation.
If you are not sure how you can manage this, consider applying this pattern to identify behaviours in divisions, departments, teams or organizational units rather than individuals.
If you can’t bring a reflective self-awareness informed by complexity; a multi-dimensional cognitive flow; and a spirit of pattern observation and sensemaking to the application of this Pattern, its better not to use it! Develop your pattern identification and sensemaking capability and use that wisely instead.
I have not include sociopaths as an archetype, although they are arguably present in the majority of organizations and can do a lot of damage. That is because sociopathy is a human pathology that description should not be used carelessly outside mental health and psychology professions. Having said that, many of the archetypes in this Pattern may be manifestations of sociopathic behaviours, which are not only negative for social entities generally, but can also be limiting for sustainability transformation. That’s why pattern observation and sensemaking for emergent behaviours and taking steps to dampen their effects is such an important part of Living Systems Practice.