Self Promotion

I suppose that today's society rewards the idea of self-promotion. This works fine for some extroverts, but what about the rest? 

I found this interesting perspective in an article by Sarah Green Carpenter in the Harvard Business Review. 

She also goes on to say that "wanting to be good at something is incompatible with thinking you are good at something" and this is a distinction that is lost on many, if not most. I have seen this far too often in the past with self-belief exceeding ability and skill level. The first instance of self doubt can easily lead to the "house of cards' falling with quite dramatic affect. 

Teenagers are not really emotionally and intellectually prepared for this part of life. There is no manual and so they seem to make it up as they go. Often this leads to a case of overkill or 'poor winners', and you guessed it - schadenfreude! Not having the maturity to realise that your success comes at the expense of someone (even a friend) is not at the front of their thought train and we get to a toxic impasse. Winners see their detractors as 'sore losers', while losers see winners as 'braggarts and self-absorbed'. As I previously posted, this is a huge problem at college admission time where the big winners are jealousy and animosity!

I too celebrate the triumphs of my boys, but the celebration is also tempered by fact that there is a fine line between self-esteem and self-confidence, and over-confidence and becoming a 'sore (or bad) winner'. It becomes a balancing act between 'strengths and weaknesses' and handling them both in a positive and productive manner.

Pushing children and encouraging them to engage in self-promotion is neither productive or a shortcut to success. It can easily have the opposite effect resulting in self-doubt and even alienation from the peer group (refer to my blog on schadenfreude). This makes it imperative to think about our own actions too, as they can become the 'norm' for our children to copy and adopt.

So maybe we should ask ourselves

• Are we modeling the right attitudes in our children?
• What sort of values are we instilling in children?
• Are we developing creative and mature adults?
• Eveb though soeicty in general favours self-promotion, is it really a necessity?