Personality is said to be formed in our early years, but what are the factors that influence this? Gender and sibling position might be a factor and some researchers have spent a considerable amount of time looking at this. In Systems Theory, sibling position became a concept of the theory that Dr Murray Bowen developed based on the work of Walter Toman who had researched sibling position and developed “role portraits’. For example, I am the eldest of three and my husband is the eldest of four. As the eldest children we are very well practiced at being helpers. I have been at a conference once where the eldest children in the room were asked to raise their hands. The audience was mostly made up of psychologists, social workers, psychiatrists, and health care workers and it felt like the whole room put their hand up. Those who take on the role of a typical eldest child are often good at helping, leading and being responsible.
At this point I reflected on how much my sibling position and the role I held in my family, influenced my personal role as carer, as nurturer and most likely my career choice as a psychologist.
I recall one presenter at a conference I attended telling the audience that under stress the typical eldest will say “Who can I help?….who can I help?…who can I help?” and under stress the typical youngest will say “Help me…help me…help me.” My youngest child tells me that the youngest child is more likely to become an entrepreneur, rewrite the rules and carve their own path. Whereas I read that first borns are more likely to become CEO’s, such as Elon Musk, Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos who are all eldest children in their families. So, the idea is that personality is a factor but the position we are in our families that we grew up in and the role we take on is very significant. In systems theory there is more of an emphasis on position rather than personality.
In a workplace there can be roles people take on and if people can be flexible and adaptable this is a sign of a healthy system. When there is rigidity or roles become fixed, then this can lead to problems. In the wild, the animal world needs to adapt, or they die. It is a similar idea for humans, if we can adapt then we can flourish, but if we are rigid and unable to adapt then we can get very stuck. The interconnectedness is important. How we work with each other is crucial to the team flourishing. In the animal world – no one individual monkey can solve the problem, but if a few of them work together they can work it out together. As humans we think we are independent, but we work best when we can work together to keep the ‘tribe’ strong.
Working on ourselves is important to working well in a team. Think of an example where one person working in a team is working really hard and then becomes very aware of others not working as hard. They can then find this very frustrating, especially when they notice their colleagues taking regular coffee breaks and they only have time every now and then for a break. In this example, they need to focus on their own work but become very interested in what others are doing or not doing. This growing frustration can lead to talking with others about their observations, so they seek comfort by having others agree with them, but this comes at the expense of the people they are talking about. Sound familiar? We do this all the time as humans. It’s called gossip or whingeing. Soon the ‘hard workers’ are all discontent about the ones that take long lunch and coffee breaks, but they do nothing to address the issue that they are working beyond their allocated hours, choosing to take on the really hard work and probably heading for burnout. We need to address our own self rather than focus on others. In this example emotional maturity in the workplace really needs some work!
In a workplace or a team, a lack of adaptability means that the organisation might not be able to take on new challenges, might struggle to adapt to change and might not embrace new members well. Emotional Maturity in the workplace can be challenging to achieve but involves increasing our adaptability.
Please join me for my upcoming workshop on Emotional Maturity in the Workplace -Thursday 2 November from 12-1.30pm.
https://dashboard.stripe.com/prices/price_1NsXnzAv4Ye2JKAxXRpxFe55
I will be talking about managing ourselves better, working with others and leadership.
References:
Roberta Gilbert (1992) Extraordinary Relationships. John Wiley and Sons