EXCERPT: The Father Factor
May 30, 2006— -- Dr. Stephan B. Poulter, a clinical psychiatrist examines how a father's parenting style impacts the way his children function in the workplace. He identifies five major types of fathers such as the "Superachiever," "Time Bomb," "Passive," "Absent" and "Compassionate/Mentor." Poulter argues that understanding your father is critical to enjoying a thriving career.
Chapter 1
Fathers Matter
The Impact on What You Do and How You Do It
It wasn't until after my third personnel conflict with a male supervisor within a six-month period that I noticed a troubling pattern. It was only then [I had] the idea that my relationship with my father might have something to do with my career problems.
-- Linda, age twenty-nine
I have always wanted and sought my father's approval. I rarely received his support and approval. I still look for it at times with colleagues and clients. It is a vicious cycle: I want my father's support, and I know it will never happen the way I want it to -- he isn't that kind of man.
-- Mike, age thirty-seven
Some people are very skeptical about the impact their fathers have had on their careers, especially if they've chosen jobs that are different from their dads'. "I'm a lawyer, and my father was an electrician, so obviously he hasn't had any influence" is a typical response to being asked whether one's father had any effect on one's career choice.
The father factor exerts its influence in many different ways, not just whether you followed in dad's professional footsteps. It can create your most significant weakness on the job as well as your most significant strength. It can determine your level of job satisfaction. And it applies to women as well as to men, to the middle-aged as well as to young people. It is a timeless influence that must be properly understood if you're going to maximize your individual potential and ability in your career and life. The foundation for your career direction, the father factor directs your career selection and development, both consciously and unconsciously; your ability to excel; and your ability to develop meaningful professional relationships. Your father's particular parenting style is the template that forms the father factor in your career.
If you're still wondering about its existence, try an experiment. Think about a conflict with a boss or a subordinate that occurred relatively recently. Perhaps your boss called you into his office to complain about your performance on a recent project. Perhaps you had to put a subordinate on probation. Whatever the episode involved, summarize it in a paragraph, focusing on your words and feelings at that moment. For instance:
I told Joan that I could not tolerate her talking rudely to our major customer again. I explained that I realized this customer could be a pain but that her behavior was inexcusable. For the next fifteen minutes or so, I talked while she listened; I essentially gave her a refresher course on how to treat our clients, Customer Service 101. I said, "I know you think the customer is a jerk, but you should be mature enough not to lash out at him the way you did." As I was talking to her, I felt a bit guilty because Joan is a good person and solid employee, and the customer was truly a jerk.
After writing your paragraph, answer the following questions:
1. Did what you say in the encounter remind you in any way of how your father spoke to you when you were a child?
2. Is there anything that you said that was either the exact opposite of or identical to the tone and substance of your father's conversations with you?
3. Were your feelings in this encounter similar to or the exact opposite of those you experienced when you had a conflict with your dad as a child?
The odds are that, even without going through this formal exercise, you've experienced situations in which your words or feelings at work reminded you of an encounter with your father. People commonly report talking to a subordinate exactly how their fathers talked to them, even to the point of using the same expressions. They also frequently recall relating to a boss in the same way that they related to their father. In other instances, though, the impact of a father on an adult child's work behaviors is more subtle than many would expect. This effect is the theme of this entire book and will be looked at from many different perspectives and under numerous circumstances.
The key, however, is recognizing that there is an impact. The father factor is a negative in your career only if it goes unrecognized and undiscovered. When you're aware of it and learn to manage it, this factor becomes a positive force. Therefore, let's look at some issues that should raise your awareness of the profound impact your father has on your life and your career.
AN IMPACT THAT TRANSCENDSDEATH, GENDER, AND INTIMACY
One obstacle to appreciating the profound effect of the father factor is rationalizingit away. For example:
• My father has been dead for fifteen years; how could he still have an impact on my career?
• I'm a woman, so it makes more sense that my mother rather than my father has affected my career choices and job performance.
• I was never particularly close with my father, so I don't think he has much of an impact.
• My father was a nonprofessional and worked at the same job for forty-two years until his retirement. I am already a professional, have had two career changes, and have never worked longer than four years at any one company.
• I never respected my father's work ethic or his work history. I am completely different.
Let's look at why each of these rationalizations are specious.
If your father has died, that doesn't mean that the feelings from that relationship are dead. Many of the most important relationships we will have in our lifetimes are timeless. We carry the impact of these relationships in our minds and hearts. When women and men of all ages talk to me about the death of their fathers, even the people who maintain that they didn't have a close relationship with their dads say that they were surprised by how much they were affected. People routinely use terms such as devastating and overwhelming loss to describe their reactions. It is not unusual for daughters and sons, then, to suffer from depression and hopelessness and/or to begin to question life's meaning. It is also common for adult children to question and ponder their careers after their fathers' death. Suddenly, a job that they liked may appear trivial and meaningless.
Years later, this death still has tremendous power and influence. When some consider leaving a job long after their fathers have passed away, a number of them note that they can hear their fathers' voices in their head, "I didn't raise any child of mine to be a quitter," and they heed that voice. When others decide to make a significant career change, they often explain it by saying, "I didn't want to end up dying like my dad and never having had a chance to do what I really wanted to do." Therefore, don't underestimate the impact of your father on your career. If your father is dead, recall the enormity of your feelings about him at the time of his death. If he's alive, talk to trusted colleagues or friends whose dads have passed away and ask them whether their career decisions have been affected by the memory of their fathers.
Many women -- in fact, some men -- believe that their mothers had more influence than their fathers did over the adult professional they became. No one would argue the commonsense logic that mothers are invaluable to their children's development. In fact, in the world of stay-at-home moms and often emotionally or physically absent dads in which many of us grew up, mothers had the greatest impact on our lives simply because they were there the majority of the time. Women certainly are role models for their daughters, and it would be absurd to suggest that fathers are models for their daughters in the same way. And because of a distant relationship between many fathers and daughters, their dads are discounted in terms of importance and long-term career influence.
Despite all this, however, most of you from the baby boom generation were probably were raised with a man as the primary breadwinner in your family. In the prototypical nuclear family or some combination of it, Dad wore a suit, work clothes, or a uniform and went to work every day, while Mom was a homemaker. Even if your mother worked, she was probably viewed -- overtly or more subtly -- as second in importance from a work and financial perspective.Typically, men made more money; they didn't take time off to have children or to raise them; and they had "real" jobs (doctor, lawyer, businessman) as opposed to women, who primarily were in the helping professions (teacher, nurse, social worker). It is extremely important to note that being a teacher, nurse, or social worker is by no means less demanding or important than the traditional male professions. There was -- and still is, at times -- a cultural bias against women that has been in place for many years. Though things have changed quite a bit in recent years, typically men still are paid more than women even in careers such as law, medicine, engineering, and business (especially at the top corporate levels); men are still less likely than women to stay at home and raise the children. Women are still considered the primary parents for their children regardless of their career status. Those women raised in a traditional home need to understand their mothers' legacy in the home and also their fathers' legacy in the business world, for these daughters have a double-edged sword approach to their career. One side is their fathers' role and work ethic. The other is their mothers' approach and view of the working woman. It is critical for all daughters to understand each parent's beliefs about the home and workplace. It may be very difficult for a daughter to reconcile her dad's professional accomplishments against her own professional competence and her mother's views of what women should be doing.
For these reasons, along with thousands of years of human history, fathers have generally had a more significant impact on a child's career choices and work habits than mothers have had. The workplace has always been a masculine model and arena for men, and men have been solely defined by their work and the success within it. Most men still view a failed career opportunity as a personal failure, and many women feel the same way about men who don't succeed in their jobs. The home, on the other hand, has been a feminine model for women. Women have been defined by how well they cared for their children and tended to home duties. Right, wrong, or otherwise, these cultural beliefs are very strong and have been in place for thousands of years. Fathers have always been expected to work the land or, since the Industrial Revolution, work away from the home and support all their family's material and financial needs and wants. In family law court, however, the majority of child custody cases are settled in favor of the motherhaving both the legal and physical custody of the children. The reason is that, regardless of the father's emotional and mental fitness, women are viewed as better primary parents. More and more men and women are challenging these types of cultural stereotypes, but there is considerable wisdom for a daughter and son to gain from understanding the effect of their father's work ethic in relation to their beliefs about their own professional lives.
In terms of the third objection -- that because a child wasn't close to a father, the father probably didn't have much of an impact -- the opposite is usually true. We live in a society where fathers are often emotionally absent at home; they cede much of the parenting responsibility to moms. Children possess a natural psychological and emotional need for both parents to be present, and, when one isn't, a negative effect can result. When dads are absent, the effect usually is most keenly felt in areas such as a work ethic, ambition, and relating to authority figures. Fathers matter to their children, and all children naturally crave their fathers' involvement in their lives. Absence, of course, isn't the only issue that causes career problems for a child. A father-child relationship that is problematic, strained, or filled with anger and disappointment may have a profound effect on everything from career choices to relationships with colleagues. As negative as this might seem, there's a positive flip side to it. The relationship with your father (orstepfather or any male father figure) can provide you with a wealth of information and insight -- and that goes even for a bad relationship! You can use this information and insight to get back on track or to move your performance to the next level. Understanding your father's legacy in terms of relationships, work, and finances can be a powerful resource and springboard for your career.
Believing that your father's career has no relevance to your own is often myopic and dangerous. Let's say, for instance, that your father started working for General Electric right after the war and stayed with the company for forty-eight years in a non-management capacity until his retirement. You have gone to college, have an advanced degree, have worked in several management positions, and have been laid off twice as a result of corporate mergers. It appears on the surface that your and your father's career lives have nothing in common. Consider, for a minute, your father's motivation, certain career choices, work stability/endurance, and relationship style. These nonverbal daily behaviors contributed to the very fabric and foundation of your own father factor. Even if you're a woman, you have your own father factor, which is your style of behaving, professionally and otherwise, which was influenced by your father. You observed your father in his career and watched him survive in the same place for forty-eight years. Your father's work behaviors contributed valuable pointers on how to conduct yourself in your career. There are considerable nuggets of information and wisdom to be found in how your father survived in the workplace, managed difficult supervisors, and remained in the same job for so many years. Don't dismiss his career life because it appears so different from yours. The same tools can be useful for you to survive in your career as they were for yourfather.
Finally, your father may not have been a career role model or the type of person you care to emulate. The slippery slope of anger, resentment, and rage in this relationship is one that many daughters and sons, regardless of age, fall into, desperately trying to become the professional that their father never was. This career approach is a reaction to the family trauma that you experienced growing up. There is an edge of aggressiveness and "cold-heartedness" to professionals who have never resolved or come to terms with who and what their father was. The driving force in this son's or daughter's career is the complete rejection of who and what their father was as a parent, working adult, and partner to his or her mother. The career legacy is overcoming the disappointment and disillusionment of men. Trust of authority figures is a difficult thing for professionals who have had this type of father-child relationship.
HOW THE FATHER FACTOR WORKS:THE MANY SOURCES OF ITS POWER
The father factor can work for you or against you; it all depends on whether you understand and appreciate it or ignore it. Let us assume you prefer the former. The key to understanding and appreciating depends on looking at the father-child relationship from the following perspectives.
1. The four different types of attachment (your emotional bond with your father). The four types -- intermittent, avoidant, depressed, and secure -- provide clues on how you connect emotionally in personal and professional relationships. (They are described in detail in chapter 2). It shouldn't be surprising that people who formed a secure attachment with their dads when they were young usually enjoy strong, beneficial work and intimate relationships. A secure attachment means that a child and his father bonded early in the relationship and maintained that bond, giving the child a strong sense of security and a feeling of being loved. This attachment process provided a basis for all future relationships, allowing the adult-child to be open, communicative, and trusting of other people. Of course, not all attachments are equally positive. By understanding this bond, even under the worst of circumstances, you can still develop secure, strong emotional bonds with people.
2. Your father's rule book: your father's and grandfather's spoken and unspoken rules about work, relationships, ethics, and money matters. Hard work, ambition, and achievement are learned behaviors in families. The odds are that if you're highly successful, so, too, was your father and his father before him. While there are many exceptions to this rule, it generally holds that sons and daughters follow in the footsteps of their fathers and their grandfathers concerning work. Even more predictable are the rules of the ways of relating, which are all based on your internal rule book. This comprises powerful spoken and unspoken rules, which guide your behavior, thoughts, and beliefs. Once you are aware of your father's rule book, you have to update, rewrite, and make it all yours. Most adults live by their book but seldom consider changing the outdated, nonproductive behaviors in it. Your father handed this rule book to you, but it must be reread, rewritten, and re-evaluated for your career to move forward.
3. Fathering style (daily interactions, behaviors, and communication with your father). The five basic styles of fathering are the superachiever, the time bomb, the passive/negligent father, the absent father, and the compassionate-mentor (which are discussed in detail in chapters 3–8). These have a tremendous effect on your own work style, relationship style, and the rules by which you live. Whether you are a harsh and demanding boss or a pushover depends, to a significant extent, on your father's parenting style. How your father interacted with you is a critical piece of personal information that helped shape your current career choices, professional relationships, and career potential. Understanding fathering styles provides the foundation for insight into the father factorand thus into your career and personal life.
Sam's Story
To give you a sense how these three areas of daily interaction, behavior, and communication with your father influence jobs and careers, let's take a look at the case of Sam, a thirty-eight-year-old associate with a small Cleveland law firm. Sam's dad, Teddy, was a salesman who was frequently on the road. Sam remembers weeks going by without seeing or even hearing from his dad, who drove throughout the Midwest selling machinery parts to factories. Even when Teddy was around the house, though, he wasn't particularly involved with Sam's life except when it came to sports. An avid sports fan and former minor league pitcher, Teddy paid attention to Sam only when he had a little league game -- he would go to all the games, or, if he was on the road, he would call Sam after the game and ask how it went.
Though Teddy was often away because of work, he didn't work especially hard, or so it seemed to Sam. In fact, he was fired from the machinery parts company because the company felt he wasn't "pulling his weight" -- Sam remembered hearing the phrase during an argument his parents had. Over the next ten years or so, Teddy moved from one sales job to the next, never making much money or expressing much satisfaction with his work; his most common comment when he left a company or lost a position was, "It's just a job."
Sam, a good student, knew from the time he was in high school that he wanted to become a lawyer. He was extremely logical and an excellent debater -- he won awards when he was on the high school debate team -- and eventually attended one of the country's top law schools and made Law Review (a ranking of the top law students in the country). After graduating, he was offered a high-paying job with one of Cleveland's large corporate law firms. Shortly thereafter, he married and had two children.
Unfortunately, Sam's career didn't take off as it seemed like it might have. From the very start, he told his wife that he felt like a "round peg in a square hole" at the law firm. He hated the demeaning way that partners treated associates, and, once he had children, he adamantly refused to travel more than once a month on firm business, even though all the other associates traveled at least twice as much as Sam. On more than one occasion, Sam had what he termed "personality clashes" with partners, generally over issues that had nothing to do with the work and everything to do with their "attitudes." When Sam was passed over for partner, he resigned, telling his wife that he wanted to work for a smaller firm where the culture was more civilized and the hours more reasonable. Sam, though, had issues at every small firm he worked for. At one firm, his boss was lazy and incompetent. At another, the work wasn't sufficiently challenging. Though he didn't change firms as frequently as his father changed employers, he worked for five different firms in twelve years, and he didn't make partner at any of them.
How did Teddy impact Sam's career path, performance, and job satisfaction? First, Teddy was an intermittent or avoidant father emotionally. Teddy's fathering style was primarily absent, even though they lived together. At best, Teddy was a passive father toward Sam. Consequently, Sam grew up without ever establishing a secure emotional attachment with his dad. In turn, he tended to be wary of most people, especially bosses. He never fully trusted them or believed what they told him -- the result of an absent father. Sam tended to leave law firms prematurely, perhaps because he unconsciously didn't want to be dismissed, as his father seemed to dismiss him. Second, Teddy was never a particularly positive role model in his treatment of money or ambition; he never made a lot of money or seemed to care much about achievement.
While Sam outwardly wanted to do well and avoid his father's career path -- he had chosen law because he not only had the talent for it but also figured he could make more money and travel less than in other jobs -- he seemed to always sabotage himself professionally.
Just about every employer recognized Sam's talent, but it was his attitude that prevented him from rising above marginal status. Sam always seemed to be complaining about something, and his attitude negatively affected his relationships with clients. On more than one occasion, clients mentioned to Sam's colleagues or bosses that he seemed "disinterested" or at least not fully engaged. This may well have been a result of Teddy's avoidant/absent style of fathering. Except for when Sam played baseball, Teddy had rarely showed much emotion or interest in his son. Although Sam was much more emotionally aware and involved with his kids than Teddy was, he was different at work, putting a barrier between himself and others. He had an excellent legal mind and did solid work, but he didn't connect with clients or colleagues. Sam was more like his father at work than he could ever have imagined, wanted, or guessed.
In thinking about Sam's problems, you should be aware that he was bewildered and deeply frustrated by his inability to develop to the level expected, after having been a law school star. It was only after twelve years of career misfires and with the benefit of hindsight, reflection, and psychotherapy that Sam began to see how his father factor had affected him. Not surprisingly, Sam finally made partner at a midsized law firm when he became aware of how Teddy was still subtly influencing his job choices and attitude. Through his growing awareness, Sam took control of his father factor and made it into a positive influence. Sam was very careful not to blame his father or their strained relationship for his career frustration.
REALITIES AND MISPERCEPTIONS OF FATHERS
People experience difficulty overcoming negative career legacies in large part because they don't see how the events that took place years ago at home could possibly affect their current careers. This is a very common career oversight. Sam, for instance, labored under a number of misconceptions, not only about his father and his impact on his career but about larger father-child issues. Such misperceptions cause us to minimize or dismiss things our fathers said and did when we were growing up. Many of us convince ourselves that we exist only in the here and now and that what's past remains in the past. Ironically, this attitude gives those past events more power than they ordinarily would have. When we pretend that a domineering, demeaning, demanding, or abusive father could have no effect on us today, we may unconsciously steer clear of or leave any job where the boss is "tough or critical," missing some great career opportunities and never understanding why.
When you become aware of the realities versus the misperceptions, however, you are much more likely to recognize -- and do something constructive about -- how your unconscious drives affect your career decisions. This awareness will also help you take advantage of all the ideas and tools that we will be discussing. By understanding your father factor, you will began to increase your level of personal and professional satisfaction, and then maximize your career potential.
The following true/false statements address some of the more common misperceptions of fathers and their impact on a daughter or son. Mark a T or an F next to each statement, then look at the answer key to determine how well you did. It is not important that you pass this quiz with flying colors. What is important is that you start to see the father-child relationship themes -- ones that will increase your awareness of how your father's words and deeds have shaped your career choices and job performance.
11. Fathers and mothers serve the same role in raising their children.
12. Sons and daughters learn assertiveness and confidence from their fathers and emotional intelligence from their mothers. (Emotional intelligence is the ability to have empathy, understanding, and insight into your interactions and impact on others.)
13. Biological fathers have no more influence on their sons than stepfathers or other nonbiological father figures.
14. Women and men can overcome a fatherless past and develop a positive father factor model.
15. Fathers affect their sons and daughters for their entire lives.
16. It is impossible for women and men to learn anything of value from fathers they hate(d).
17. Not all girls and boys crave or need a positive relationship with their dads.
18. Once men and women reach a certain age, they don't want their father's approval.
19. The emotional and mental wounds people suffered as kids prevent them from being successful in their careers.
10. Even when they're quite young, children pay close attention to their fathers' attitudes and behavior about work and the value of money.
11. Verbal abuse by your father is much less harmful than physical abuse.
12. While people who seem to have come to terms with a negative father-child relationship present calm façades in the workplace, they in fact are usually pressure cookers beneath the surface.
Answers
11. False. Fathers serve as role models for their sons and daughters relative to how they approach work, use problem-solving abilities, and pursue career objectives. Mothers also serve as role models, but primarily for values and relationship issues and as a female balance to the father's influence. Each parent serves an invaluable but distinct role in a child's development. It is important to begin to understand your father's contribution to your career development. Your father plays a role today in your career.
12. False. The three primary emotions are love, fear, and anger, and the more a father is able to communicate these emotions to his kids in healthy, productive ways, the more likely they will develop emotional intelligence in the workplace as adults. Personality conflicts between work colleagues can be traced back to our inability to express and understand these three primary emotions.
13. True. Fathering is not limited to biology. The term stepfather is a legal term, but in a relational context, the prefix step has little bearing on a man's true effectiveness as a father. Your career choices and work persona can be influenced by a man who was not your biological father but who played a significant role in your upbringing. It's also possible that more than one person -- a biological father and a stepfather -- can have a huge impact on your work choices and attitudes.
14. True. Not having a father or having a horrible relationship with him does not sentence you to repeat the past or continue the negative legacy. You can make the necessary changes to excel in your career, as well as in your personal life and relationships. Your ability to understand rather than blame your father is one of the keys to success, and it's the basis for the father factor model. While anger and hatred are strong short-term motivators, these two emotions can't sustain your career or meet all the demands necessary to develop professionally and personally.
15. True. Even after your father dies, he will still affect your professional relationships and career development. No matter what boys or girls say to their fathers in a fit of anger -- for example, "I'll never be like you" -- or how much they try to distance themselves as adults, their dads still cast a long shadow. Typically, people undervalue their fathers' impact on their lives until their parents' death. Even then, many men and women don't see how a father's influence extends past personal traits into the professional world. The values you carry concerning work were formed many years ago in the context and backdrop of your father-daughter or father-son relationship.
16. False. All daughters and sons learned an enormous number of things from their father. It is quite possible to move emotionally beyond your anger and hatred of your father. Analyzing the father-child relationship can yield valuable insights that will help make you a better manager, supervisor, and parent. These insights can help you make the necessary adjustments in your professional relationships and move you to your next career level.
17. False. At times, some young boys seem as if they do not need their fathers, especially in the wake of a bitter divorce or a sudden remarriage. Some girls also appear to be so independent or so close to their mothers that they foster the illusion that a relationship with their father is of no consequence. In reality, every son and daughter seeks and needs a relationship with his or her father. The craving for an emotional fatherly bond must be emotionally acknowledged. Denying this natural impulse creates a void, one that plays itself out in work situations. People who deny this may also be in denial about the need to build strong relationships with customers, subordinates, and others.
18. False. Regardless of age, we all desire our father's approval. Approval is part of our psychological wiring and a natural occurring father-child dynamic. Unfortunately, you, like many kids, may never have received that approval growing up -- or received it rarely. Giving your own self-approval, self-acceptance, and self-love is the solution, but many people choose instead to seek these qualities from others in the workplace. Many times, they look to a boss for fatherly approval, which, as we'll see in later chapters, creates all types of career and personal problems. Issues that result from missing/absent fathers will never be adequately resolved in the workplace.
19. False. Growing up with a conflicted, abusive father is not a reason to repeat the sins of the past or continue to punish yourself through your career choices. You don't have to run from bosses who offer constructive criticism or run to bosses who are weak and ineffectual, for instance. Nor do you have to become abusive to your subordinates in response to that childhood abuse. You control your career choices through insight about how you were raised and the style of fathering that shaped your childhood.
10. True. Sons and daughters watch their fathers like hawks when it comes to things involving money and work. Many children developed the skill of observing these work-related behaviors from a distance, without being noticed. Some people contend that they never really paid much attention to these issues while growing up. But usually they're just blocking out what may have been unpleasant experiences: Dad screaming at Mom for spending his hard-earned money or Dad complaining about how his boss has dumped too many projects on him and he's thinking of quitting. Your approach to money and a work ethic come directly from observing your father's attitudes, actions, and beliefs in these two areas.
11. False. As horrific as physical abuse is, verbal abuse is equally destructive from a career standpoint. Cruel words and constant, negative badgering diminish a child's sense of self and lead to problems with authority and trust. Bosses who demean and belittle employees often come from homes where their fathers were verbally abusive; these people need to diminish others in order to build themselves up. (It is a constant cycle of abuse.) In addition, verbal abuse is invisible. Unlike most physically abused children, the verbally abused girl grows up believing she had a normal childhood. This lack of awareness makes her vulnerable to the effects of this abuse in the workplace and in intimate relationships, too. She often doesn't seek professional help for the damage done to her self-esteem and never acknowledges or articulates how awful she feels about her father's behavior -- both past and present. Given the lack of overt physical evidence (broke n arms, black-and-blue bruises, swollen faces), she tends to minimize the long-term damage that verbal abuse causes. Consequently, she carries the emotional damage and pain into both her personal and professional lives.
12. True. People in management positions often have perfected the art of appearing outwardly calm under pressure, while inside the pressure builds. These symptoms can cause sleepless nights, ulcers, and anxiety as well as physical problems that negatively affect their decision-making abilities or even cause them to quit. An emotionally supportive, caring father provides a child with the inner resources necessary to cope with all types of stress, including job-related pressures. He helps his child gain the self-esteem and coping skills that serve him well in school, work situations, and adult relationships. Some of these children may respond to stress with anger, depression, or anxiety, but inside they're capable of managing the stress and continuing to function effectively.
PUTTING IT TOGETHER: CONNECTING THE FATHER'S BEHAVIOR WITH THEADULT CHILD'S WORK ATTITUDES AND ACTIONS
Depending on attachment type, fathering style, and his rule book, a father can affect his children's career decisions and job behaviors in myriad ways. The effects, however, are far from uniform or clear to sons and daughters. Even if you have two dads (divorce from or remarriage to your mother) with the same attachment types, fathering styles can impact children in different ways -- for example, a stepfather who is more emotional in his active fathering style than the biological father. Genetics and work environment (type of employer, culture, boss, etc.) also play significant roles. Still, we can make some clear connections between the way a father raised his children and the strengths and weaknesses they exhibit as professionals.
To help you see these connections, I've put together the following "quiz." You'll find a scenario describing a child, his father's methods of raising him, and then three possible outcomes for the child, when he or she becomes a working adult. See if you can make the connection between the child, the method of raising a child, and the likely outcome.
1. Andrew, a top corporate executive who worked extremely hard and did very well at his job, gave his daughter, Allison, nearly everything that she asked for while she was growing up. He did so in part because he had to travel a great deal for his job and often felt guilty for not being around much. Therefore, whenever he returned from a business trip, he had a present for Allison. In fact, he gave her a brand new BMW sports car for her sixteenth birthday, in addition to private tennis and golf lessons and trips to Europe during summer vacations with her college friends. He doted on Allison and rarely, if ever, raised his voice to her, even when she would get in trouble -- staying out past curfew, getting speeding or reckless-driving tickets, drinking and driving. Andrew was certain that Allison was a great kid with strong values and that the best thing he could do as a parent was to trust her. He didn't demand or set any emotional or behavioral limits for Allison. Andrew wanted to be Allison's friend, first and foremost.
A. Allison became a successful corporate executive just like her father. She chose to follow in his footsteps because he treated her with such generosity and communicated his happiness with his career and the success that it brought him. She, too, was a high-powered executive who traveled a great deal, worked long hours, and was satisfied by the rewards of a top position and high salary.
B. Allison rejected the corporate world and materialism in general, rebelling in postadolescent fashion. She became an elementary school teacher at an inner-city school.
C. Allison bounced from job to job and career to career, never sticking with anything long enough to achieve any real measure of success or security. Though she would start a new career or job with enthusiasm, she quickly tired of it and became anxious to move on to something else. Allison had chronic financial problems and a poor credit rating. She needed her father to bail her out with large yearly donations.
Correct answer: C. An absent, overindulgent father can produce a child who finds that no boss or organization treats her as well as her dad did. She never receives enough praise, and her salary is never sufficient. She also finds that the work is never as easy or as much fun as she thought it would be. A result: she is constantly searching for the ideal job or career, a search that is futile.
This type of father breeds a dependent daughter or son as a result of his passive/absent, overindulgent, guilt-driven style of fathering.
2. Michael, a self-employed plumber, was highly critical of and short-tempered with his son, Alex. In little league, Michael was the type of dad who yelled at Alex from the stands when he committed an error, and Michael constantly offered his son "tips" about how to play the game. When Alex would bring home his report card, Michael would never be satisfied, no matter how many A's Alex received. Michael exploded at his son for minor violations of the family rules, chewing him out in front of his friends and other family members. Michael did these things in part because this was how he himself was raised; his own father had made it clear that boys needed tough dads, or they were likely to get into terrible trouble.
A. Alex started his own small business that he operated out of his own home. He was able to make a living, but he passed on many opportunities to expand the business and make a much better living because, as he told others, he didn't want to take unnecessary risks. Alex was very unsure of himself and wasn't willing to extend himself.
B. Alex became a tyrannical boss, the type of old-fashioned command-and-control leader who barked orders and let people know if he was unhappy with their performance.
C. Alex became a stockbroker who relished in taking gambles and making them pay off. As a successful stockbroker, he showed the world (and his father) that he didn't deserve to be criticized.
Correct answer: A. As a result of Alex's upbringing, he was terrified of taking risks and being criticized for them should they fail. A small, safe, home-based business ensured that he wouldn't have many people angry at him or telling him what he was doing wrong. Alex couldn't tolerate having people upset with him and was very vigilant in keeping the peace with all the people in his life. Being self-employed also helped avoid the issue of dealing with any type of authority figure.
3. Carl, a dentist, made certain decisions early on to ensure that he could spend a lot of time with his son, Louis. He located his office relatively near his home, and he hired two associate dentists as soon as it was financially feasible, so he could then attend all of Louis's recitals and concerts. (Louis played the piano.) Not only did he spend time with Louis, but he was an emotionally present father. He wasn't afraid of expressing his emotions in front of his son; he didn't hide his tears when something sad occurred, and he also was willing to let Louis know if he was disappointed in him. Carl wasn't perfect -- he tended to do things for Louis that Louis should have done himself -- but he was a consistently compassionate and present.
A. Louis never could rise above mediocrity in his career, in part because his father gave him too much help and support and prevented him from being a self-starter; Louis, too, tried to be a dentist but lacked the initiative necessary to market and run his office effectively. Louis needed his father's emotional support so he could function in his career. Without it, he was ineffective.
B. Louis chose a completely different occupation from his father -- he became the general manager of a major symphony orchestra -- and loved what he did. He chose a field with relatively few positions, but he was confident in his ability to succeed at something he enjoyed and of which he was knowledgeable. A dynamic, creative executive, Louis helped his symphony orchestra stay in the black when most orchestras were losing money.
C. Louis became a studio musician and did fairly well, though he always wanted to play at a higher level. Carl was so supportive and compassionate that he robbed Louis of the competitive fire necessary to excel.
Correct answer: B. As I noted, Carl wasn't a perfect father, but he was always emotionally available when his son needed him, so they enjoyed a stable, secure relationship. This not only bolstered Louis's self-esteem, but it gave him the courage to fail. He found a career he loved, and, even though the odds of succeeding at it weren't high, he possessed the confidence necessary to focus on an ambitious goal and achieve it. Carl had the inner confidence as a father to support the differences between him and his son.
In real life, these three scenarios would, of course, be much more complex, but these are nonetheless fairly accurate. For the sake of making a point, I've simplified the actual causes and effects. You likely noticed the sometimes hidden, unobserved, or fully understood connection between a father's behaviors and an adult child's career decisions and work behaviors.