Why parental mentorship is key to work achievement
Celebrated author Peggy O’Mara once said: “The way we talk to our children becomes their inner voice.” No matter how gentle or harsh, empathetic or indifferent, motivating or ridiculing, the voice of a parent undoubtedly affects a child’s self-image and potential. In fact, it can either push them to reach for the stars or fill them with doubts, thus limiting their growth. This is true for all children.
Fortunately, my parents did not wait for Peggy O’Mara’s books to come out to learn how to talk to a child, a teenager and even a grown woman. They knew that what they do or say today will have a huge impact on their daughters in the future.
You would expect a man who moved from one country to the other to be to be more conservative and apprehensive of the new society. Instead, my dad had a progressive parenting style.
As a matter of fact, my dad made it a point to teach my sisters and me that nothing can come between us and our dreams. He strongly believed in a world of possibilities. No origins, no status and no gender can limit us. The main thing that determines our success is our work ethics. Thus, we believed that we had equal chances to succeed and to fail. From this point onwards, the world became ours.
My dad chose to play an active role in our lives. He put in the time to build strong channels for dialogue between us. This, I believe, was indispensable for the creation of an enabling environment where trust and support are the norm. I am never scared or ashamed to speak to him about anything because I know that he will support me.
Similarly, he never shied away from sharing his problems and concerns with us. I remember being very eager to listen to him and give him my thoughts. Eventually, my dad would come back later to share with us his final decision and explain his rationale. This has helped us immensely in developing a robust decision-making procedure that is based on articulate reasoning. Besides, we learnt that no matter how old we get, we can always make mistakes. We should never let our pride prevent us from acknowledging them. We equally understood that it is acceptable to ask for help when needed. Most importantly, it taught us to feel for each other, support one another and value our family.
With this in mind, he always encouraged us to experiment and even make mistakes. My dad was aware that people only learn through hands-on experience. To him, mistakes were in fact our source of growth and development. Similarly, acknowledging our faults and apologising were as important for the process. As someone who believes in leading by example, he made sure to show us that ego is an impediment to growth. This is how we learnt to own our mistakes and apologise.
Learning to display empathy from an early age made a world of difference to my life, especially at work. In fact, as a woman working in the construction industry, I became more sensitive to communication stimuli. I understood that the person who is talking to me is a canvas of experiences and emotions, and therefore has
The family is the unit of civilisation and the learnings we impart today will solve issues for women at the workplace for generations
certain biases. This realisation has constantly pushed me to dig deeper to understand people’s actions and feedback.
Armed with such tolerance, I believe we can very naturally dodge tension. Having pacified our entourage, we can claim and maintain a healthy and conflict-free environment, especially since we spend more than a third of our lives at work. In such a setting, we can easily identify clients’ needs and improve our services.
On a professional level, what I have learned from my dad made a huge difference. Being constantly reminded of the importance of being frank and direct in my relationships with others is one of the most invaluable traits I built. The reason I say invaluable is because it has helped me in establishing my credibility. I know that my word is trusted and heard. As a woman in a senior position and working in the construction field, I believe that building one’s authority is crucial in maintaining work flow.
In the same way, being raised as a goal-oriented person has erased fear from my dictionary. What I am looking for instead is to achieve my goals regardless of the difficulties I face. In fact, I believe that there is always a solution to any given hardship. Such motivation and determination has pushed me to compete with myself many times and find creative channels that could lead to my goal. Today, this problem-solving aptitude has granted me recognition among my peers. I have to say, this could not have been the case if I was not mentored and pushed to think and adopt this work ethic from an early age.
The sad reality of our society is that often this mentorship happens for a male child but parental instructions for the girl child tend to be different and in many ways, limiting.
So, if I have any advice to give to a fellow woman professional today, it would be to be confident and to never overlook the power of the time you invest in building human relationships and seeking new perspectives that allow you to break free from conventional thinking.
As you hold your little ones today, we must remember that we have all the power in the world to make this tiny person the most caring friend, the most supportive partner and the strongest of all leaders. The family is the unit of civilisation and the learnings we impart today will solve issues for women at the workplace for generations.