How Your Dad Influenced Your Career

Tomorrow on my Blog Talk Radio show, I'm going to interview Dr. Stephan Poulter, who I wrote about last week regarding his take on how mothers influence us in both our private and professional lives.

I thought it might be helpful to also look at a story I did with Poulter a couple of years ago, when he wrote about how fathers influence us in our careers.

In his book, “The Father Factor: How Your Father’s Legacy Impacts Your Career,” Poulter says there are five kinds of fathering styles that create the father factor.

Those are:
• Superachieving: “It’s all about looking good. The fathers work really hard, and they have kids that are very responsible and very driven,” Poulter says. “But there’s also the shame factor – children of these fathers never feel good enough.”
• Time bomb: “This dad is often alcoholic or very volatile and heavy-handed,” Poulter says. “The kids learn early on how to read people in order to survive.” As workers, these people often avoid conflict, yelling and expressing any degree of anger or frustration, emotional tension or dealing with unresolved conflict in the workplace. These workers often have a lot of anxiety, and suffer from low self-esteem on the job.
• Passive: “This father showed his love through his actions. He was very responsible and stable, but lacked courage and motivation,” Poulter says. As a result, these children become workers who are emotionally distant, which is difficult in today’s labor force where employees may change jobs or careers many times, and need to be able to connect with people again and again. “These are the kinds of kids who grew up with a father that was asleep on the couch and they’d say, ‘Is he asleep or is he dead?’ It was hard to tell because he was so passive. As a result, in the workplace these people have a hard time relating to other males.”
• Absent: “This is the father who is not involved in a child’s life,” Poulter says. “When the first man we love leaves our lives, it often produces an angry or aloof employee in the workplace.” He stresses that a father’s death is a loss, but his involuntary departure versus a voluntary exit creates a different effect on children. “Absent fathering – from indifference to physical abandonment – will lead to a coping with profound sadness or to anger issues such as violence, criminal behavior and white collar crime.”
• Compassionate mentor. “This is where we all want to be, what we should all work toward,” Poulter says. “These fathers help a child find a roadmap and help center them. In the workplace, these are the children that grow up to motivate people around them, and empower others, as they were as children.”




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Best Bets for 2008

I didn't get around to this week's Tidbit Tuesday because (duh) it was Christmas and I was busy spending time with my family and cleaning up dog barf from my Golden Retriever who ate half a bag of Peppermint Patties. (And just for the record, I will never eat Peppermint Patties again.)

So, I'm doing a Tidbit Thursday, which doesn't sound as catchy but will nevertheless be just as riveting:

* Hand me that wrench: In ranking the best careers for 2008, U.S. News and World Report dropped 25 profiled careers from its 2007 list and added 11 new ones. The story says that the best careers include some blue-collar jobs such as a firefighter or hairstylist, and government jobs, which always have the "luxury of continually paying employees well."

* Grandpa didn't sleep well, either: It's estimated that emloyees who are sleepy on the job cost the national economy about $100 billion annually in lost productivity, are more prone to absenteeism and accidents, and have higher stress and lower creativity. A new study may explain that insomnia, often blamed on job and life stress, also has another cause: a family history.
According to a new study, individuals with current or past insomnia were significantly more likely to report a family history of insomnia than were good sleepers who had never experienced insomnia in the past.
It's estimated that about 30 percent of adults have symptoms of insomnia, with most needing between seven and eight hours of sleep a night to feel rested.


* Rockin' job and good books: The New York Post profiled the real School of Rock dude that the move was loosely based on. Think you have it in you to teach the next Van Halen? Check out what Paul Green has to say about his job.
And, while I'm on the subject of the Post, let me direct your attention to a list it has compiled of their Top 10 picks for 2007's "notable career success books". On the top of the list is ... drum roll please...me. (And the other nine listed are pretty darn good, too.)




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