Would you like to understand the Quiet Quitting movement?

Quiet Quitting has been defined as rejecting the idea that work has to take over one’s life and that employees need not go above and beyond with their job descriptions state.  In my opinion these are the people only working for the money. That meaning that they are only working for their spending habits. They have been misled about what work can do for them. That is because employment should help stretch a person so that they become more than they were before they started this responsibility.

As you know there are three egos that reside in ourselves, and are developed over our life-time. They are the adult-like ego, the parent-like ego and the child-like ego.

It is the child-like ego that I want to focus on right now because in business we need to be aware of who we hire, and the ramifications of our hiring. In order to do that I believe that we need to look at the way we parent our children. It is my observation that at least one of the parents of a child has a very protective idea of love, which could mean removing the beloved from danger, eliminating trials in their lives or reducing the struggles in their lives. From my perspective, I believe if you do this too often and for too long, we deprive a child of living a life that helps them grow and learn.

I strongly believe that when we let a child remain in the midst of a struggle, we are honoring them in a few ways. Number one, you are saying to them, grow and learn. Number two, you are showing your trust towards them. Correct me if I am wrong, aren’t these attitudes what a parent needs to do to help their child(ren) grow to be the best person that they could be?

Parenting style plays an important role in the extent to which youths can also develop narcissistic personality traits in life. This is according to a study recently published in the ‘Journal of Research in Personality’.  The research has shown that the way parents socialize their children shapes their pathway of development. It appears that there is a link between adjustment problems during childhood and adolescence and the development of narcissism. As a reminder, narcissism is a personality trait that includes characteristics as exploitative behaviors and fantasies of success or power. There are two other ones that I want to address, they are a feeling of superiority and a lack of empathy.

How would you feel if a young person came looking for employment with you and they came off as being superior, dominant or a know-it-all?

How would you feel if a young person showed no empathy when hearing of a staff member who had experienced a death of one of their loved ones or had been in a major car accident?

Now you know that a feeling of superiority and a lack of empathy in a new hire can have a very negative impact on you and your other staff.

So how did we get to creating narcissistic children?

The first model shows us that it is due to inconsistent criticism, hostility and a lack of warmth from at least one of the parents. And of course, this makes the child feel inadequate. For the child to compensate these feelings of low self-worth they feel the need to boost their self-esteem by over-inflating their self-confidence and seeking approval.

The other model addresses how extremely soft parents pamper their children with excessive congratulatory comments which in turn contribute to the development of narcissism. When this happens, the child develops an attitude that they are superior and need special treatment.

Many times, I’ve heard parents talk about their unconditional love. To me that means that there are no conditions of their love for that particular person. I believe that this idea has been ill-informed by society and the actions of the parent. Let me give you an example. The child is rude to the parent and the parent ignores the action and makes an excuse for the child behavior. Do you think that the parent missed a great learning opportunity for their child? I do! This is because I believe that you can criticize an action, and still love the person.

In conclusion, years ago, I was taught that inside all of us are three distinct and separate egos that work to create our unique personalities.

• The adult-like ego is rational, gathers information and is able to make logical decisions free of emotion.
• The parent-like ego tells people what to do. It is also our biggest inner critic, and it protects and cares for you.
• The child-like ego whines, begs for attention and acts up when its needs are not being met.

With this in mind, which of the 3 egos do you want displayed by those you hire?

The Quiet Quitting movement leads us to two choices;

• The choice is to help our children grow up to be polite and truly employable, and
• the choice of the people hiring is to pay close attention to avoid hiring spoiled, narcissistic and pampered people, isn’t it?