Does your career seem to be stalled? Do you have frequent problems interacting with subordinates, bosses, or fellow employees? Do “gender issues” seem to interfere with your day-to-day work? Because the father-child relationship is critical to the development of emotional fluency, people who grow up without a healthy “father figure” have great trouble forming productive relationships in all areas of life—including the workplace. Dr. Stephan Poulter offers the following examples:

Career Roadblocks for Men:

If you are the son of a “Super Achiever" father, you may exhibit a sense of “stuckness”—you rebel against your father by functioning well below your capabilities and failing to accomplish much in your career.

If you are the son of a “Time Bomb" father, you may develop amazing “people pleasing” skills. At first glance this may appear to be a positive, but in reality you probably work to appease people rather than confront problematic employees and raise divisive issues.

If you are the son of a “Passive” father, you probably have difficulty expressing yourself emotionally. In a work environment in which barriers between “personal” and “business” lives are crumbling, being able to connect emotionally with others is a necessity.

If you are the son of an “Absent” father, you have great difficulty working for male bosses and interacting with other authority figures. Furthermore, you may tend to lash out at co-workers and generally exhibit a lot of anger.

Career Roadblocks for Women:

One of the critical traits, gifts, and internal confidences a father gives his young daughter (from approximately ten to eighteen years old) is a sense of competence. If you are a woman without an internal male/fatherly sense of competence, you are at a severe disadvantage in the workplace. This “handicap” may manifest in a variety of ways:

* You may exhibit a crippling lack of confidence that prevents you from pursuing and achieving goals.

* You may overcompensate for feelings of inferiority by becoming the type of executive your co-workers think of as a “female terminator.”

* Rather than interacting with male co-workers/bosses on a professional level, you may be consumed with gaining their attention by dressing and/or behaving provocatively.

* You may feel so desperate to please your boss that you withhold honest feedback and/or fall apart at the first hint of criticism from him or her.

If you recognize yourself in the examples above, you may need to explore your relationship with your father in order to free yourself to move forward in your career and life. Dr. Stephan Poulter offers executive counseling sessions in person or via telephone. He also offers a keynote presentation/workshop entitled Business and the Father Factor: How Your Father’s Legacy Impacts Your Career. Click here for more information.