I do not think it is a matter of generation; it is more about what we have heard and how we have internalized certain messages, each and every one of us. Certainly, our parents, those who had stood by us until we reached the age of around 7 or 8, have a major role. But I do not believe it is good to put all the blame on them. After all, it is up to each of us to render the right messages to ourselves. If my tendency is to hear negative messages, that is exactly what I am going to hear. Someone has recently told me he posted his speech from Ted Ireland on LinkedIn. He had a few hundred likes and one dislike. And he said, “Look, there was someone who clicked the wrong button.”
This is what it means to look at things in the right way. Someone else might say, “Look, this one doesn’t like me! What did he dislike? Didn’t others just press like for the sake of it?” Etc etc. – these are messages from the negative voices in our head.
We all need to be appreciated, accepted – some more than others. Some of us would like to be loved by everyone around us. Someone said to me a long time ago: “You know, dear, not everybody liked Jesus, either; why would you think everybody would like you?” Toute proportion gardée, I think there is some truth in that.
Studies show that men have more self-esteem than women; this is also supported by the society, by the legislative system. Let us think about the fact that men have the right to work up to an older age compared to women – and this is not based on mental capacity.
In 2013 I attended a programme at Insead: The Challenge of Leadership. This is a programme for top executives; we were 21 people in the group, a total of 16 nationalities. Each of us had to present ourselves to the others in turn, stand in front of the group and tell our story. It was a great challenge to present our lives in a structured way and select those significant moments that made us who we are.
It seemed like a cathartic experience to talk in front of others and be “coached” by the facilitator and all the other colleagues. Hearing all the stories of those executives, you realized you were not alone. All those very successful executives had many insecurities that they were struggling with. They were very tough on themselves, they were self-diminishing, setting higher and higher standards – I have to do more, do better, get better results. It is said that all people are normal until you get to know them better. We all have issues that we have to deal with.
The same is true for all the managers, the executives from the organizations present in Romania – be they Romanians or other nationalities.
Self-esteem is as important to our well-being as the legs are to a table. It is essential for physical and mental health and for happiness. (Louise Hart)
Unfortunately, however, there are many of us who are not doing very well in this respect. Self-esteem builds up during childhood. The first years of life are very important in the development of a person. How present or absent the parents were, how they manipulated their children, their family, how much they neglected them – all these aspects can be seen in the adult who comes from childhood with issues of self-esteem, insecurity and self-confidence.
In many cases the father is absent, manipulating, negligent. His role is taken by the mother, who is perceived as the strong, determined figure sets the course and gives cohesion to the family.
The relationships we have with our parents become a predicting factor of the type of relationship we look for as adults.
Here are my notes on self-esteem:
1. My training company, Interact, has been on the market since 1997 and I could say this has been a company that has grown together with its clients. We have developed a lot, we have expanded especially in the last 12 years, I would say.
Our mission is to enable change in order to make a difference around us (it seems to me that it sounds strange in Romanian, I conceived all these things English and it sounded better to say Enabling change to make a difference). We want to support the personal and professional development of our clients, people from different companies.
Over the years, however, we have also had projects with high-schools in Bucharest, with university departments – the goal being to prepare new generations for the moment when they have to start work, to help them be better, more adequate, more proficient. I have often said in my own company that I want people working at Interact to be permanently prepared so that if something else ever happens or they want to do something else they will find a job that is at least as good as the one they have with us.
I do not know how much everyone has appreciated this – my intention has always been good with them.
2. Confidence and self-confidence seem to me to be some of those ‘fashionable’ words, those memes that circulate in organizations and have become void of meaning. Of course, you can not build a great deal without trust.
I have heard people say that we ‘must’ trust unconditionally. I do not think that to be quite true; trust needs to be gained. Nobody will trust us unless we do something that deserves their trust. Or rather, their trust will be superficial at first. Trusting others is also based on our own self-confidence. And this is built from the early years of life. See what I wrote on the paper…
3. Self-esteem is essential, I should say. Few of us have it, though. We often see managers, leaders at all levels who lack in it (but not only them). Derailing behaviors – aggressiveness, passivity, arrogance, narcissism, the need for excessive control, excessive anxiety, for example – are all based on low self-esteem.
4. Recently, in Dublin, I had a ride taxi driver from Romania. He told me that he had been there for twenty years and that one of the things he appreciates most is that people behave in a civilized way, they respect each other. If people treat others aggressively, looking down to them, as if they were masters, they risk being sued.
In Romania, we often see excessive behaviors – and I am not talking about tantrums (we all get angry, we all have good days and bad days) – I am talking about the attitude of the type master/slave (toute proportion gardée, of course) that I often notice. It takes two to tango – both the master and the slave have a low level of self-esteem.
I think it is both a national problem and one of education. We cannot go from the siting-idly primitive shepherd attitude to an assertive one very easily. We go through the aggressive stage first. We have often heard people talking about the Romanian people who resisted, although it was often conquered. This has not given us a winner perception, it has rather made us into an occupied nation, of people who can “adapt”, finding shortcuts in order to survive.
Education can help, but it takes a lot of time. I have recently read that a surveying stating that Romanians invest the least in culture among all EU member states. Education cannot be done on TV, with corrupt politicians, or by keeping teachers in a miserable state. The internet can help us, social media as well, but it depends a lot on how we use them.
5. Training can help but to a limited degree. A training can be a starting point; it can create a tipping point. Coaching can help a lot more. They say that in order for behavior to change, it takes a period of twenty-and-something days of repetition. Thus, to get daily physical exercise into our system, we need to do this conscientiously for about a month. Building self-esteem is a longer-term process. After all, you have been like that for years, right? And these negative things seem to have deep roots. I would say the first step is awareness. Then, it is good to work with a coach who has the necessary training and experience, who has been through many situations in their life.
However, I have often seen people who choose a coach who has a rather aggressive, normative behavior – a sort of parental image, in fact. I do not know how much it helps – for me it would be a disaster. I see the coach as someone who is like an encyclopedia, a person who makes you think of different aspects, who gives you options, perspectives, energy, someone who not only reads a lot, but has himself or herself been through multiple life experiences, who has transformed / metamorphosised himself in his or her life. Or maybe my standards are too high.
Still, how could I build my self-esteem with the help of a person who has not built and rebuilt himself or herself, someone in permanent search? I chose Insead because it is the only coaching school in the world that has a psychodynamic approach; this is a where you can not go without a certain experience, without having passed through various stages in life… (what else to write about the Insead approach?)
6. I do not think there is a difference between state and corporate employees. Stressful conditions exist everywhere – it depends on how you commit to the job.
I remember a Swedish client (he was working in a company in Romania) who said he was stressed, and he had nights when he could not sleep – but he was not complaining because he had chosen that job, and that came with responsibilities, and that payment was done accordingly. I think we always have a choice – no one puts a pistol to our temple to stay in a certain place. The difference is that some commit to their choices and others do not. This is where discontent, inadequacy come from.
Certainly, it is not easy to make a change – but I think it is good to analyze things carefully, patiently, and when we make our choice, we should commit to it. Entrepreneurs also have their level of stress. Knowing that you have to pay the salaries of some people, that you have to make sure you have satisfied customers/clients, happy colleagues – these matters can be very stressful. But they have made a choice – and, like any choice, it comes with good and bad points.
7. There are also situations like this. I find people with a huge ego hard to manage – they hear themselves rather than listen to others – how can they accept that they have to work on themselves? I think there are few people who have the appropriate self-esteem – but how do we find them ‘le juste milieu’
8.I do not believe that the millennials generation has a higher self-esteem. They may seem more arrogant, entitled, more aggressive at times – but if you look more closely, things are not really like that. After all, they are the children of the generation who used to be in college or high-school when the revolution took place; they carry inside of them a great part of their parents’ ways. It is just that they have all their life ahead of them to become better.
They are only at the beginning, they are just starting out, looking for their place, searching. It is normal for them to appear ‘entitled’ to others – I think we all seemed like that to older generations. We have only forgotten how it used to feel/be…
9. My self-esteem – in the end, the need to be better every day, to make a difference, the constant discontent with what I have done so far, with what I am, the desire for continuous transformation – all these show that my self-esteem is “under construction”. It is like the roads in this country – always under construction. I have learned to see the good side of things, too – this rather low self-esteem has always made me struggle. You see, I think we all need feedback, we need to know we do some things well.
In my country, people rarely give positive feedback (starting with parents who are afraid such feedback might go up to our to head, continuing with school – by the way, I have recently heard a teacher saying that 8 is the maximum grade in his class, 9 is for him, and 10 is for Eminescu (one of the greatest poets of my country)– and going on to colleagues, clients, and friends. When was the last time when you congratulated someone, thanked them, appreciated something in them, told them something suited them well, told them they looked good, etc.? Talking about women in the business environment – yes, there are still a series misconceptions, there are misogynist men; what annoys me most is when I see women favouring men, behaving badly with other women… there is some kind of hatred in there, some kind of gratuitous malice that amazes me yet.
10. I do not know whether coaching is still in fashion or not – being a coach is in fashion. Many people leave multinational companies and become coaches; there comes a moment in life when we think we must and we can teach others. That does not happen only in Romania.
We are talking about some of the fundamental needs of people, after all. I think it is normal for everybody to want to get better. Nobody wants to stand like still water, right? How we do this is another matter. Some go to classes; others change their job; others hire a coach; sometimes we go to the psychotherapist; or we start a new university programme – Psychology seems to be in fashion these days, from what I have seen. I have recently spoken to someone who said that many people go to this faculty in an attempt to ‘fix’ themselves – but that is not necessarily the solution.