The Weight of Roles
Last month, I co-organised and ran a half-day workshop for men with Sven, a colleague of mine who is an Executive Coach and Senior Executive living and working in Dubai. The workshop was titled De-find: The New Man. The Role of Men in Modern Society.
The purpose of the workshop was to create a space for men to explore their sense of self, their identity as a man, and the gifts and pressures of the roles they occupy in their lives, and to connect with other men. To explore masculinity and manhood in the modern age.
Sven and I chose to explore this topic of “men’s roles” while on a leadership retreat this summer in Spain. Sven is in his midlife, a decade and a half my senior. As a man, he has walked many years in roles that I’m beginning or looking forward to occupying: father of three, senior executive, provider. His lived experience speaks to both the rewards and the personal cost of those roles. He also grew up in a different social environment than I did, one where roles were perhaps more traditional and clearly defined, in contrast to the shifting expectations that shaped my generation.
Men have a special relationship with roles. Much of our identity, and much of our sense of value, is defined by them. Father, son, friend, leader, partner, husband. These roles come with expectations, purpose, and a sense of duty. They give direction to our energy and meaning to our contribution.
There’s an unease that many men feel today. We want to give, to serve, to stand for something, but we’re not always sure what the world is asking of us anymore.
For most of us, identity isn’t a set of ideas; it’s something we live out through the roles we hold. Each role carries a certain weight and a sense of dignity. They are not cages to escape from, but containers through which love and responsibility take shape. A man’s sense of worth has long been tied to how dependable he is. His willingness to provide, to protect, to stand steady when others can’t.
Now, though, the ground beneath these roles has shifted. What once gave men clarity about where and how to show up is often questioned or criticised. We’re told to “reinvent masculinity”, but not what to build in its place. Many of us find ourselves unsure how to inhabit these roles without confusion or even shame.
I don’t believe the answer is to discard them. These roles matter. These roles are sacred. They’re how we make love tangible. The invitation for men today is not to reject these callings, but to live them with greater awareness and heart. To bring devotion back into responsibility, and purpose back into strength.
The Inherited Script
Throughout history, men grew up with clear ideas of what it meant to be a good son, husband, father, and leader. Each role came with its own expectations and dignity, pride - a sense of purpose. A son honoured his parents and carried the family name with care. A husband provided for the family, built stability and stayed true to his word. A father protected, guided, and provided. A leader took responsibility for more than himself.
Many of these roles and expectations were shaped and informed by traditional gender roles that weren’t perfect. They sometimes constrained emotion or placed men in rigid hierarchies, often at the cost of both themselves and others. Yet within them was real value. They called men to reliability, courage, restraint, and service. They reflected the masculine energies innate to men and trained the male heart to live for something beyond itself.
Modern culture has loosened these definitions, and has encouraged everyone to find their sense of identity beyond the roles that people hold. Freedom has grown, but it came at a cost. In trying to correct the shadows of tradition, we’ve sometimes thrown out its light. We’ve mistaken limitation for irrelevance. We shouldn't glorify and chase the past, as some movements are trying to encourage, but to recover what was good within it. Remember what is true. Integrity, steadiness, and the willingness to bear weight. These qualities aren’t outdated; they’re essential. They make men trustworthy, needed, and whole.
The Cultural Whiplash
Men today are growing up amid mixed messages about how to inhabit the roles that once defined them. The world still calls on men to provide, protect, and lead, but some also warn that those same instincts are oppressive or outdated.
We hear that women are equal. But do we split the bill or pay? As partners, are we still expected to provide, or is that patronising or part of the "patriarchy"? As fathers, are we still guardians of safety, or is that seen as control? As sons, do we still carry the family name with pride, or has that become irrelevant?
We’re told not to dominate, yet people still expect us to take initiative and to stay grounded when things are uncertain. We’re told to be vulnerable, but we must never collapse, because the people we love still depend on our steadiness.
Perhaps the problem isn’t that men have failed to evolve, as many are quick to argue. Perhaps it’s that society hasn’t decided what it wants of us. We’ve dismantled the old structures but built few new ones with equal meaning or consideration. The expectations of the old roles - protection, provision, reliability - remain (and certainly many men want to keep them) but removed the clarity and honour that once came with them.
A man used to know what was being asked of him. Now he’s told to be everything: strong but soft, leading but equal, decisive but deferential. And don't be too much of a man. It’s no wonder many of us feel disoriented. We’re not resisting change; we’re trying to live with integrity in a world that is in split minds about the natural masculine qualities we bring.
Between Worlds
I see this tension in my own life and in the lives of my peers (late 20s - early 40s). We grew up in an age shaped by feminism. We were taught to honour women’s independence, to recognise their competence, and to see equality as something natural and right. We believe in that deeply. Yet alongside that message, many of us we absorbed another: to protect, to pay, to hold doors, to be ready to step forward if danger comes.
That double message still runs through us. One part of us delights in serving, leading, and providing. For most of us. This comes not from ego, but from care, love and a sense of duty. Another part of us hesitates, afraid that doing so makes us outdated or condescending.
Among younger men, especially those in their twenties and thirties, I sense not rejection of the various roles that men play, but curiosity about them. A desire to step into them differently with consciousness, and pride. While some older men speak of being “beyond roles”, many of us are looking forward to inhabiting them.
Others, without the structure of the roles that used to guide men throughout our history, talk about being lost, looking for meaning in a world that doesn't seem to provide it any longer. Talented men, with no-one to serve, no cause to stand behind, drift purposelessly chasing temporary pleasures. They never develop into their mature masculine, remaining boys.
This phenomenon is more notable in more "progressive" cultures. My observation has been that in more "traditional" cultures (as I see here in Cambodia), young men suffer perhaps similar pressures still as the ones that Sven likely faced as a young man.
The Desire to Give
Beneath all the questions and contradictions, most men still want to give. To be dependable. To carry weight. To know that those they love are steadier because of their presence. It’s one of the simplest and most sacred desires we hold.
Yet it’s also where many of us are most misunderstood. When a man’s giving is dismissed as control, or his steadiness mistaken for emotional distance, he starts to question the goodness of his own instincts. He begins to wonder if what he has to offer is even wanted.
That uncertainty quietly eats away at men. Some overcompensate - giving in ways that turn into sacrifice without recognition (as Brene Brown puts it - we "get really good at pretending"). Others withdraw, withholding their strength, unsure how to offer it without it being seen as a threat. Others disengage from society, and the rejection festers and turns into anger and division. All are forms of grief. Initially, all come from wanting to love, but not knowing how to be received. And society as a whole suffers.
The masculine heart needs a channel for its generosity. It needs to give in ways that are welcomed and trusted. Not because men can only feel useful through doing, but because giving is how we participate in love. It’s how we move from self to service, from isolation to belonging.
What men need is not permission to dominate, but the trust to give fully again. To lead with warmth, to hold with humility, to protect without shame. Strength, when rooted in love, does not overpower; it liberates.
The Feminine Mirror
If men are confused, women are too. Many are caught between two competing currents: the instinct to be strong and self-reliant, and the longing to rest in the safety of being met, held, and guided. Modern women have been told they must do it all and never need anyone. And many have done exactly that, with grace, brilliance, and exhaustion.
The feminist movement was necessary. It corrected centuries of imbalance and opened the door for women to walk fully into education, leadership, and choice. Yet somewhere in that revolution, we began to confuse equality with sameness. Men and women were never meant to be identical; they were meant to be in partnership.
In flattening difference, we also diminished the value of roles. Yet father, mother, husband, and wife are not relics. They are psychological and spiritual containers for love, commitment, and belonging. The polarity between masculine and feminine - between direction and flow, structure and nurture, giving and receiving - is not hierarchy. It is design. When these differences are honoured, they create harmony; when denied, both sides suffer.
Perhaps this is where the East has something to teach the West. In many Eastern cultures, the difference between men and women is seen as self-evident rather than threatening. Yin and Yang, opposite yet interdependent, exist in a divine dance that requires both to be whole. The East may not have perfected equality, but it has preserved an intuitive respect for polarity: that masculine and feminine are sacred forces designed to move together, not apart.
(I'll add a note here. It is currently en vongue to point out that men come in a range of shapes and sizes, as do women. Of course, we want a society in which all ranges and varieties of "man" and "woman" can exist peacefully with acceptance. And yet the reality remains - if we look at the distribution of qualities, men and women are different. The average man and the average woman is different. There may certainly be overlapping qualities, and that doesn't mean difference are completely made up. We should not throw out fact for the sake of an accepting and free society - a society built on lies cannot be an accepting one.)
The way forward is not to be fixed to old roles, nor to discard them altogether, but to inhabit them consciously, with freedom, reverence, and choice. The masculine can lead without domination; the feminine can follow without submission. This is not regression. It is reunion. It is partnership.
The Way Back to Core
Perhaps the work now is not to redefine men or women, but to recover the sacredness that sits at the heart of our roles. To remember that leadership, protection, and provision are not about control or status, but about care. They are love expressed through strength, steadiness, and responsibility.
For men, this means learning to inhabit these roles with more heart and less armour. To lead from presence, to protect through listening, to provide not only materially but also emotionally and spiritually. It means remembering that responsibility is not a burden, but a form of devotion.
For women, perhaps it means trusting that strength can coexist with tenderness, and that partnership doesn’t require sameness.
If we can meet one another here, in our differences, but also in our shared longing to give and to be received, perhaps we can co-create a more united and connected future.
That, to me, is what it means to come back to Core. To live the roles we were given not out of habit or pressure, but out of love and honour.
Author’s Note
This reflection is part of Back to Core - my coaching work with men who want to live from depth, strength, and love. We explore how the masculine can lead with integrity, how responsibility becomes devotion, and how roles, when inhabited consciously, become sacred rather than heavy.