Daddy Management

 

One of the most prominent moments of the last week was getting in a screaming row over the phone with the godmother of a young man that we had just hired. She got the message that we were overworking him when she had told him to focus on his studies. The upshot of this argument was that we started behaving like divorced parents arguing over a kid. I called her an overbearing mother and she accused me of being an overbearing father. Then, temperatures cooled and we tried to reconcile, she asked me not to use words like Mummy and Daddy in relation to work colleagues because she felt the parental adjectives were “creepy.”

While I’ve agreed with her not to use such adjectives in order to stay in a good place with her, I actually have a different perspective. She’s never been a parent but I have (and still am). I’ve realized that the experience of being a parent to a young adult is good grounding when it comes to the area of managing young adults (anyone over 21) in the work place. Kiddo, was probably one of the best teachers I could ever have.

The first point that needs to be made is that being a parent is an emotionally challenging job. It’s a case of taking on obligation to care for another human being and as my mother said when I told her that I got Gina pregnant – “It’s a lifelong job – you don’t stop being a parent because a kid reaches a certain age.” So, when you take on a parental role, the role will involve taking on all sorts of obligations and how well or poorly you did depend on what that someone else has become.

However, while the job comes with obligations, there is a small catch. The person that you take responsibility for won’t listen to you, thinks you’re a dinosaur and suspects that the best thing they can possibly do for themselves is to do the opposite of whatever you tell them to do.

This combination makes the job frustrating. It’s a job requirement to except that you will inevitably be disappointed but at the same time you will have to respect their decision because its their life and their decision to make.

The room for maneuver when guiding young adults is narrow. There are really only two things you can do. Firstly, you got understand that you are dealing with a grown man or a grown woman and not a small kid. Grown men and women expect a certain amount of respect as intelligent beings. The days when you could say that “I am your father/mother and I know best” will not wash.

So, it helps when you sit down with them and explain the rationale of your instructions to them. It’s up to you as an older and wiser person to respect that the person you are talking to is an adult. If that said young adult ask you about the question about the rationale behind your instructions, explain it to them. Respect their ability to figure things out and they will inevitably respect that you may now a thing or two more than them.

The second and more vital point about being a parent of a young adult that is especially applicable in the work place is the fact that young adults can be fairly observant and the old fashioned “I’m the boss” goes down as well as “I’m your parent.” Sure, they can accept that certain things might be different for the boss, but ultimately what they look to is you as an example. You need to be aware that they’re watching you and wondering if they want to be you when they get to your stage in life. So, the challenge for anyone managing young adults is this – what you say to them, is in many ways, not as important as what you show them. This requires stepping up your game. I mean, I never held a steady job for long. Then Kiddo came into my life and suddenly I became aware that what I did was probably going to shape her views on men. As such, I had to work, not so much because I needed to go towards household expenses but because in my mind, I wanted her to see a man go out and work and to be able to pay bills. I am glad to say that the two serious relationships that I’ve seen her in were with two guys who went to work and did what decent men do when it comes to taking care of the family

Parenthood is a tough and demanding job. You could say that your management style needs to change on the job to suite the needs and the times. What you do as a parent is actually good training for you as a supervisor and as a person.