Are you experiencing regression in your teams?
Do old beurocratic behaviours seem to be creeping in against all your highest ideals?
Simple awareness of our patterns can so easily liberate us from negative instinctual responses; I am going to let you into a really common mistake we ALL make sometimes.
As Leaders and exemplary followers, people naturally revert to the styles they learnt as children. Often unconsciously slipping into the role of parent, child or adult (adult being the most challenging role as it requires mutual respect, interdependence and responsibility) and we bring what we learnt at home into our present relationships, using manipulation and collusion to try and motivate others towards our own outcomes or to just stay in our comfort zones. As I am sure you know, this often leads to long term disastrous results, drawn out disciplinary hearings etc.
The parent-child relationship can manifest in such subtle indicators, such as a woman cocking her head to one side, which is a primal signal of submission or vulnerability, this in turn awakens the ‘father’ in a male, and the two unconsciously contract to father-daughter behaviour in a split second. Or another common one would be the use of language like ‘darling, babe, sweetie, boytjie’ etc, all of which enforce superiority, thereby playing into preferred roles.
In most situations it is best to work in the adult/adult realm, as this moves us towards the “I’m ok, you’re ok” relationships, supporting AUTHENTIC Leadership in that the aspirational values are universal like mutual respect, honesty, patience and the nurturance of resilience.
Adult-adult relationships have proven to be most effective for creating high performance cultures and can facilitate an alignment to your core values and highest spiritual laws. They empower us to contract robustly with each other, hold each other to the highest standards with respect and an authentic belief in the capacity of our peers, colleagues and teams.
This liberated and aware state also nurtures an environment where performance can be managed through rigorous feedback loops.
Usually it is the "parent" alter ego that initiates the transformation whilst the "child", albeit thinking they want freedom, fears the responsibility of adulthood, and seeks to manipulate, cajole or collude to put the "parent" back into position. The situation can also be reversed, where the "Parent’s" ego strength is too underdeveloped to deal with acknowledging the independence of the "child". Both are fragile situations.
People can tend to fluctuate between all three alter egos: adult, child and parent, but usually revert to playing one role in a specific context.
It is our choice to consciously step into our interconnected, interdependent, adult selves.
I’m ok….. you ARE ok!
Natalie Vlismas
The man who developed the theory behind transactional analysis is Eric Berne, read an interesting article on the theory at http://www.businessballs.com/transactionalanalysis.htm, I think you may find it useful in explaining some of the causes of breakdowns in relationships and perhaps inspire you towards a model of ‘I’m ok, you’re ok’.
Natalie Vlismas- Authentic Leadership, Life and Wellness Coach
082 659 9866
+27 11 646 9891
The Coach Network cc
www.thecoachnetwork.co.za
info@thecoachnetwork.co.za
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