How school years affect adult life? The psychologist reflects on what from adolescence experience helps us develop leadership skills.
I often ask my clients to talk about their school years. These memories help to learn a lot about the interlocutor in a short time. After all, our way of perceiving the world and acting is formed at the age of 7-16 years. What part of our teenage experiences most strongly influences our character? How are leadership qualities developed? Let’s look at a few important aspects that affect their development:
Travels
The craving for new experiences actively develops in a child under 15 years old. If by this age there is no interest in learning new things, then in the future a person will remain incurious, conservative, narrow-minded.
Parents develop curiosity in a child. But school experience is also of great importance: trips, hikes, visits to museums, theaters. For many of us, all this turned out to be very important. The more vivid impressions a person had during his school years, the wider his horizons and the more flexible his perception. This means that it is easier for him to make non-standard decisions. It is this quality that is valued in modern leaders.
Social work
Many, when talking about their school years, emphasize their social merits: “I was the headman”, “I was an active pioneer”, “I was the chairman of the squad”. They believe that active community service is a sign of leadership ambition and qualities. But this belief is not always true.
Real leadership is stronger in informal settings, outside the school system. A true leader is one who brings peers together on informal occasions, be it useful deeds or pranks.
But the headman is most often appointed by teachers, focusing on those who are most manageable. If children participate in the elections, then their criterion is simple: let’s decide on whom it is easiest to blame. Of course, there are exceptions here too.
Sport
Most people in leadership positions were seriously involved in sports during their school years. It turns out that playing sports in childhood is almost a mandatory attribute of future success. No wonder: sport teaches a child discipline, endurance, the ability to endure, «take a punch», compete, cooperate.
In addition, playing sports makes the student plan his time, constantly be in good shape, combining study, homework, communication with friends and training.
I know this from my own experience. I remember how right after the lessons, hungry, lathered, I rushed to the music school. And then, swallowing an apple on the go, she hurried to the other end of Moscow to the archery section. When I got home, I did my homework. And so three times a week. For several years. And after all, everything was in time and did not complain. I read books in the subway and walked with my girlfriends in the yard. In general, I was happy.
Relationships with teachers
The authority of the teacher is important for every child. This is the second most important figure after the parents. The way a child builds a relationship with a teacher says a lot about his ability to obey authority and defend his own opinion.
A reasonable balance of these skills in the future helps a person to become an enterprising, reliable, principled and determined employee.
Such people are able not only to agree with the leadership, but also to argue with it when the interests of the case require it.
One of my clients said that in middle school he was afraid to express any opinion that did not coincide with the teacher’s, and preferred to take a «compromising» position. One day he went to the teacher’s room for a class magazine. The bell rang, the lessons were already going on, the chemistry teacher sat alone in the teacher’s room and cried. This random scene shocked him. He realized that the strict «chemist» is just the same ordinary person, suffering, crying and sometimes even helpless.
This case turned out to be decisive: since then, the young man has ceased to be afraid to argue with his elders. When another important person inspired him with awe, he immediately remembered the crying «chemist» and boldly entered into any difficult negotiations. No authority was no longer unshakable for him.
Rebellion against adults
The rebellion of teenagers against the «senior» is a natural stage of growing up. After the so-called «positive symbiosis», when the child «belongs» to the parents, listens to their opinion and follows the advice, the teenager enters the period of «negative symbiosis». This is a time of struggle, the search for new meanings, one’s own values, views, choices.
In most cases, a teenager successfully passes this stage of development: he gains experience of successfully resisting the pressure of elders, wins the right to independent judgments, decisions and actions. And he moves on to the next stage of “autonomy”: graduation from school, a real separation from the parental family.
But it happens that a teenager, and then an adult, internally “gets stuck” at the stage of rebellion
Such an adult, in certain life situations that trigger his «teenage beginning», becomes intolerant, impulsive, categorical, unable to control his feelings and be guided by reason. And then rebellion becomes his preferred way of proving to his elders (for example, management) his significance, strength, abilities.
I know of several striking cases when seemingly adequate and professional people, having got a job, after a while began to solve all problems through conflicts, rebellion, and an active rebuff to all instructions from their superiors. It ends in tears — either they “slam the door” and leave on their own, or they are fired with a scandal.