The Value of Role Models

What do you want to be when you grow up? The answer is very often influenced by the kind of person who you view as a role model. Role models inspire. Role models resonate with what we want to be. A role model has to walk the talk. Authority figures are inevitably burdened with the task of being exemplary in their conduct at all times. Parents of very young children realize that the children tend to emulate their behavior whether or not it is appropriate or even safe. Many parents have walked in to discover their three year old trying to apply lipstick like Mummy or shave like Daddy – sometimes with disastrous results.

We learn our values from the role models around. There probably aren’t too many parents who tell their children to be dishonest or to take the crooked path. Yet, enough youngsters have learnt that their parents do not follow the advice they dish out. While the parent tells the kid to tell the truth, they find the parent lying (“Tell him Daddy is not home.”). BBC quotes research to say seeing violence perpetuated between parents was found the be the greatest risk factor for being the victim of a violent partner as an adult. Both men and women who witnessed domestic violence were likely to grow up to abuse their partners.

We pick up a lot of our values, attitudes and beliefs from the influences around us. A lot of our beliefs about love, marriage, punishment, work ethics etc are what we saw around us as we grew up.  A study of 226 families by Plymouth’s Peninsula Medical School found obese mothers were 10 times more likely to have obese daughters. For fathers and sons, there was a six-fold rise. But in both cases children of the opposite sex were not affected. A Department for Children, Families and Schools study quoted by BBC suggests children from heavy-drinking households are more likely to use alcohol themselves.

In the words of Graham Nash

“Teach, your children well
Their father’s hell
Did slowly go by
And feed them on your dreams
The one they pick’s
The one you’ll know by.
Don’t you ever ask them why
If they told you, you would die
So just look at them and sigh
And know they love you.”

Values are what we choose to do when no one is looking.  Of course there is a change in behavior in all of us when we believe someone is watching. Research completed by Newcastle university demonstrated that people put almost 3 times the amount of money into an honesty box for hot drinks when the poster with prices featured eyes rather than flowers.

Do we look for role models even in the workplace? The resounding answer to that clearly is a yes. The first manager is surely a role model for those who are starting their careers. At Wipro we recently did a study on 60 people who were voted as the Best People Managers. What made them the best? One clear differential was the low attrition in their teams. Even in a market where demand far outstrips supply, departures from their teams seem to be negligible or certainly way lower than in other parts of the organization. What makes people give up the options outside to stay with these managers? For one they tend to do all the ordinary things like goal setting, communication regularly and with sincerity. They celebrate the success of their team members – often in innovative ways. The people managers clearly spend a lot of time building talent. They coach team members by having regular feedback and developmental discussions.  What was the one big insight for me in doing this study? When you ask them where they learnt all this, they all say that they saw their managers invest in others careers. So clearly managers do become role models. Those who invest in others create an impact that lasts well beyond themselves.  The greatest role models are those who make us what we are capable of becoming.

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