Monday 2 February 2015

The Importance of Role Models

Today at work it was painfully obvious about how important having access to good role models is. Currently, the middle level staff generally don't look up to the senior staff. The senior staff are either blind to their own 'success' or they don't know how to fix it. As such, the junior staff (myself included) are stuck in a painful limbo, where the good staff will eventually burn out and quit. The reason I put this down to is to the lack of access of good role models. We have recently lost good staff members to this exact reason. What troubles me the most is that this situation had been repeating itself throughout my life and as such, it worries me as I have my quarter life crisis.

I'm sure my situation is not unique but I've struggled with having (in my eyes) good role models my whole life. I didn't have a tough upbringing in any sense of the word so call this a first world problem if you will. What I did have could maybe be quantified as a misunderstood upbringing.

Like a lot of people, their parents grew up in a different time. Wants and desires were different and it was essentially a different time. More things were accepted and less was questioned. This meant that as long as the basics were covered; food in your stomach, a roof over your head and a safe environment around you, that's all you need to succeed and therefore if you didn't you were either wasting their time or not trying hard enough.  

In most cases this is probably true. Mine sure was. I can honestly say, I've never really given something my all and that has wasted people's time and money. 

Which brings me to the point of this post. A good role model will help you remain focused and achieve a common goal. I've never had access to a good role model that understood me or I truly identified with. To put this in perspective, I grew up in a suburb with very few Asians around. As such, I didn't know I was of 'Asian descent' until I was probably 10 years old. I didn't identify with my mother and father and at the time I couldn't understand why I was picked on or why I had to do things that other kids didn't. As such I acted out in more ways than one.

Having Asian parents probably didn't help either as this meant I had to do 'extra curricular activities' instead of going bike riding with the other kids. Coupled with some talent, I soon found myself miles ahead of a lot of kids in my class. I even remember I was IQ tested by some guy that came to the school. However, because all I wanted to do was to belong, I absolutely hated this fact about me because it singled me out against the other kids and as such this mindset probably hampered my intellectual development. I don't think my teachers couldn't handle me either so that's probably why I got in trouble so much.

My parents thought I had 'everything', food, clothes, education etc, and therefore couldn't understand why I was being like that and I was punished accordingly. It really makes me wonder if I had had the 'right' role models around me then (remember it had to have been in my eyes), I wonder what could have been.

This got better as I got older; moving to the eastern suburbs when I was 10 definitely helped (I was a southern boy until then). The problem here was whilst, there might have been more people I identified with, I was reaching puberty and therefore my needs in a role model changed. As such, a similar cycle happened.

Multiple variations of this has continued to happen over time and its only recently that I've really understood the importance of having the right role models at that point in time. I want to stress again that at no point did I have to live through any hardship or any traumatic event, but I think that a lack of exposure to any sort of strong emotions also held me back. How else, can you figure things out if you haven't experienced the extremes in one way or another.

So to bring this back onto topic, you can see the importance of having the right roles models, even if this means swallowing your pride, cooling your ego and admitting you might not be the right person at this specific point in time.

To use a sports metaphor, at one point my office resembled a poorly run football team, maybe quite akin to Port Adelaide in 2012. The rosters full, the management positions are full, but the product was shit. I wouldn't say we are very good yet but we maybe resemble Manchester United in 2014. Good in some areas but still really shit in a lot of others. What really needs to happen, is senior figures need to become more nurturing, junior staff need to be included more often (we are the future). This has to be taught overtime and become part of the culture. It doesn't stop there though. You need to find your role model. That's the biggest thing I've learnt recently. No one can provide it for you unless you know want you want to be like. It doesn't and probably shouldn't be only one person, but if they're not in your current environment, take the risk and go looking for them. Life is really too short for 'what ifs' and 'could have beens.' 

It took me 25 years to reach this point. It doesn't have to be that long for you. Find that person and start achieving.

#Hanbaobao

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