By Leslie Pratch
Let’s look at the past development of the high and low integrity executives.
Family and Sociocultural Background. The high and low integrity executives evinced significant differences in their early development. These differences appeared in their relationship with their fathers and to some extent, their mothers. In particular, the high integrity executives, who had such clear commitment to social ideals, all described loving warm relations with their fathers. (Female executives have different coping and motivational characteristics than male executives. The relationship with their mothers likely plays a central role in the development of integrity in women.) The low integrity executives tended to have problematic relations with both of their parents.
Most of the high integrity executives were first-born males. Two of the low integrity executives were only males though they were not first-born. Firstborns tend to identify with their parents’ values and goals. Younger siblings are more peer-oriented and may more readily capitulate to peer-pressure, though there are exceptions. First-born children, because they identify with parents, try to lead others as they grow older. They are the models that their siblings try to emulate or rebel against. In families where parent-child tensions and dysfunctions are salient, as was the case with the low integrity executives, later-born children may be more prone to harbor resentment and jealousy towards their siblings and parents. These later-born children may later transfer those feelings to authority figures who remind them of their parents or siblings.
Psychoanalytic theory suggests that identifications play a major role in the formation of integrity, particularly the way in which the developing self is partially based on identifications with parents. A person’s basic sense of security, relationships with others, and value orientation emerge from these identifications. In many instances, adults become to some extent like the parents who reared them.
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Leslie Pratch, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist from the Northwestern Medical School with an M.B.A. in Strategy and Finance from Chicago Booth and a B.A. in Religion from Williams College. She works with boards of directors of public companies as well as private equity investors to assess and develop executives. She can be reached at (312) 464-7919 or leslie@pratchco.com or www.pratchco.com.
