Family Ties Can Strangle Professional Relations

Goldberg, Joan Rachel, American Banker

FIVE YEARS AGO when a Minneapolis bank vice president was promoted to her first management position, she fould herself taking on a maternal role. She defended her employees excessively. She was oversolicitous and overinvolved in their successes and failures.

"I had a problem with separation," she remembers. Today she is so embarrassed about her earlier behavior that she prefers to remain anonymous.

While office families may provide a measure of comfort, support, and even stability that may be lacking in one's private life, failure to analyze office interaction may well block career success. For the office son or daughter who cannot separate from the office father or mother (or vice versa), or the office siblings who substitute temper tantrums for adult behavior, may find themselves trapped in these unsatisfactory dynamics.

Assuming family roles at the office is common, says Samuel Squires, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist and president of Interactive Testing& Training Systems, Inc. in Larchmont, New York. In fact, he believes such behavior occurs more frequently in banking because the industry is conservative. Dr. Squires defines conservatism as being "almost synonymous with traditionalism, rather paternalistic and authoritarian."

"There isn't one way of behaving, one type of management," says Dr. Squires. He suggests managers ask themselves what type of behavior would be most productive for those being managed. A good manager is flexible and may employ more than …

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Publication information: Article title: Family Ties Can Strangle Professional Relations. Contributors: Goldberg, Joan Rachel - Author. Magazine title: American Banker. Volume: 150. Publication date: October 20, 1985. Page number: 10+. © 2009 SourceMedia, Inc. COPYRIGHT 1985 Gale Group.

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