The Superman Syndrome
Why making it hard, makes it easy. OR The secret benefit of cognitive disfluency! As a business coach who focuses on serving multi-generational family businesses I have often found that many of the problems present along the lines of “my staff are just not showing any accountability”.
The manager/leader/business owner has taught his team that he is “the only one who can do it right” and this starts the vicious circle of overdependence (Fig 1) and learned helplessness.
It is often accompanied by “My staff are just not motivated”, “I am so busy doing things - I have no time”.
Unfortunately, this has another side effect as the owner starts assuming this as his identity and sees himself as the superman who solves everything.
The sad truth is that most of these businesses only reach out to a coach when they perceive there is a problem, when these problems existed long before.
Perhaps the worst part of this is it sets up even more distrust and lack of motivation in the team and any designated successors, thus perpetuating the cycle. One of the best ways I know of breaking the cycle is to get the team to do something worthwhile that starts delivering trust! I use a simple, practical method grounded in evidence-based theory.
Often, family members are part of the problem, and the father – it’s usually the father! says “I just can’t trust my son/daughter to step in. They just won’t do it properly. How can I leave my business to them – they’ll ruin it. It’s just too hard!” I call these symptoms the “Superman Syndrome”.
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Figure 1: The Superman Cycle of Over-dependence
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