Theories on bringing up our children...

We could view child bring up in many ways... Ofcourse the loving parent is probably the best image parents have of themselves. A much more balanced view of the situation can provide alternate insights. Based of some of my initial thoughts ( which are in the making). Here is my take at it.

Before getting into the details, please don't get offended by the comparison to animals. Surprisingly the fundamental principles of "bringing up/protecting a innocent, dependent life" and methods used are very similar.

1. Lion in the Circus - More aptly the lion cubs in the circus are taught to obey the rules from the very early childhood. They learn to forget the immense power that they would posssess as adults, although at this point in time they are weak. They learn the tricks of the circus lions. They are threatened with punishment for not obeying and rewarded with pieces of meat for obeying. The lion is brought up alongside with other lions that are "compliant" and reinforce the rule. They forget their true strength. Don't learn to hunt by themselves and hence live a dependent life. Their food is taken care off. The "dependent life" works well as long as the trainer is able to maintain the walls (rather cages). What happens if and when the walls fall apart; We too as children were brought up with rules (manners, discipline) and taught skills (science, engineering, medicine, business, sports, reading, writing). The conflict people find at some point of time is when the skills and rules fails them - like the once respected mechanical engineers losing out to computer science engg. and once respected bankers relplaced by BPO employees. Many of the archiac religious practices and rituals (tricks) are increasingly questioned and replaced with mordern thinking. . As lions in the cages can never take care of themselves in the wild when moved suddenly and will probably die of hunger.The fundamentalism in some sense is because of the denial. They want to keep the circus running because it is too painful otherwise. The movie Matrix captures the conflict. We have created a world where we keep contests (exams, sports) to measure capabilities for doing "tricks". However, once the circus looses its attraction, the results are painful. Typically the most vulnerable segments of the humans - women, children and poor are the most affected. They are dominated by rules and left out when it comes to care.
2. Farms Animals - Some kids are brought up as farm animals. The metaphor here is again that the animals are fed and protected, but may not be loved. Families are provided. Not much nuturing is done. It makes the animal dependent on the farms - an artificial setup. They are treated like humans in a "Matrix" - once the job is done, they are disposable for gain. As long as they are producing they are wanted and the moment they are let off or sold or eaten. The parenting is seen in poorer nations with large number of kids and is also some form of slavery. Their life stages are predetermined and "expectation" is that they produce for the family in return for protection, food and (lack of) guilt. Multiple forms of slavery, caste system and philosophies exist in various forms over the history of humankind. Traces of which still exists in parts of the world.
3. Pets - We love our children as we do our pets. Or atleast we assume that. We "provide" them food, love, care. They provide us unlimited love and companionship. But the problem is children grow. In all likelyhood, the pampered kids grow up depending on the pampering expect the same from their spouse, friends and society at large. But the society they would face is probably not going to provide the stroking they were so dependent on. As the generation passes on, this pampered kid gets frustrated with life and society. Perhaps the wealth will passed on. However, may not necessarily learn to manage and grow the wealth. Some pets do have to learn some tricks but mostly nothing to do with conducting their lives on their own and hence will be dependent on the society that increasingly ignores them.
4. Lions in the wild - For lions in the wild life is hard and dangerous. They have to fend for themselves early in the life. There are not much rules. But the rules that exist, exist only as a protect your life - like don't attack a angry bison or a poisonous snake. Every meal has to earned. No guarantees for the future. Life ends when the next gen takes over. Is this a parenting style or theory work in real life? Is it painful? Does it help your children prepare for a better future? I'm not sure. However it is a interesting metaphor.

We all live in a world full of rules, measured by the success and wealth or by mastery of skills or by applause from the fellow humans. But the real human is hiding somewhere wondering why he is doing what he is doing...

Levels Of Leadership

There are plenty of literature available about leadership. It has been sliced, diced and analysed by hundreds of professionals. Of course several thousands of books have been written about it from the tamil thirukural and the Chinese art of war to latest books on amazon.com


Here is my personal take at it...


Technical Leadership
This is perhaps the first level of leadership. At this level, you are leader in the chosen task. It does not depend on others. It is usually you and the mastery of your tools. A painter and his painting, a programmer and his design/code, a architect and his floor plan, a soldier and his shooting skills, a sprinter and his speed. Such mastery can be gained by practice and does not influence anyone else. Such influence if any is either inspiration by competition or accidental.


People Leadership

At this level of leadership, you are able to influence a set of people by your communication skills and personality. People follow you because they see you do things. Your influence is limited to people you interact with. Ideas are propagated by touch. Most "grass roots" leaders operate in this mode. They inherently understand human feelings and are able to respond positively to emotions. They are able to "connect" with other human beings. This helps them achieve goals that require a team to put their energies together.


Operational Leadership

At this level of leadership, you take up a bigger task that requires you to manage the interplay of different stake holders for the task. This requires you to be able to setup systems that organize themselves, optimize the functions, identify friction points and smoothen them out. The team you build works like a well oiled machine. You strike the balance between finance team wanting efficiency, your engineering team wanting freedom, your QA team wanting Quality, your customer teams wanting timeliness and so on. Your goals are multi fold and working on one will affect the other. Striking the balance is essentially a function of the job. At this leadership level, the one needs to be multi-skilled and you are expected to be operational in different domains.

Strategic Leadership

At a strategic leadership level, you set directions for the team and not worry about how it is achieved. As army general would direct his armies, these leaders will direct the operation, set goals. The task is to find "what" to do rather than "how" to do. Strategic leadership is like setting the course of a ship. Without which the ship floats whichever way the current is. A strategic leader creates a vision for the organization. And his vision sets the goal for people whom he may never met or talked or influenced. He operates at a influenced by thought level.

Are these levels incremental?

The skills required for each level of leadership is different and hence a leader who is good at one need not necessarily succeed at the next level. The person who is good at operational leadership level need not necessarily be strategic thinker or great people leader. However organizations are committed to making leadership sequential are doing great injustice both to the individual as well as to the organization.

These are different skills like decathlon athlete would tell you, different stages of games require different training and skills.

Perhaps one aspect of these that increases sequentially in number of people these leaders influence. However, that does not necessarily mean that the leadership translates to hierarchy. A strategy consultant providing consultancy to an operational leader like a minister to a king perhaps is case in point. An operational leader providing support for a people manager in his decision making is also conceivable. A technical leader taking the help of his people leader to get things done is also not a unthinkable idea.

It would be amazing to see a leader who is good at all these skills. However, it is perhaps possible to see people with 2 of these leadership skills, the rarer breed is 3.

This isn't natural progression.
Leaders who find themselves unable to perform at the next level tend to hang on to their comfort zones. a strategy question will be answered operationally. A operational decision will be influenced by people issues. A people issue will be resolved technically.

Will write more on this topic later...