Clinical Psychologist "Dr. Stephan B.Poulter" - In The News: "CNN: YOUR WORLD TODAY"

YOUR WORLD TODAY
Aired May 15, 2006 - 12:00 ET

CANDIOTTI: Still ahead on YOUR WORLD TODAY, who's your daddy, or who's your daddy, should I actually say?

CLANCY: According to one psychologist, and this is what we're talking about, your father, the father factor, as he calls it, counts when it comes to whether you'll have success, failure or confrontation in the workplace.

GORANI: All right, why is that? We'll explore the issue in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GORANI: Welcome back.

CLANCY: Well, what determines success in your job? What is it really? Is it your drive to succeed? Perhaps your social class?

GORANI: How about, who your father was? Or how your father treated you? A U.S. psychologist argues that your father's style of parenting is a crucial factor. Stephan Poulter lists five styles of father:

CLANCY: Super-achieving, time bomb, passive, absent, and compassionate mentor. Poulter says the type of father that you have can determine both why you're good at your job and why you might fail.

GORANI: To elaborate on this we, have Stephan Poulter with us. He joins us now live. He's in our Los Angeles bureau. Thank you for being with us.

All right, let's talk about this, and this, I found that this piqued my interest a bit last week when I heard about your book. Five styles of father determine how you do at work.

Let's start with the absent father. Many people say my father never really was around, or my parents divorced. What kind of worker in the workplace does an absent father produce?

STEPHAN POULTER, AUTHOR: Many times the absent father will produce an angry child, an employee that has an angry personality. But also the side effect is, say, you have an absent father, you never knew him, but your mother knew him, there's myths about him. He had an impact in your life, even though it might not have been direct. What kind of work that would be many times is a person who understands the role of being responsible, commitment to a task, following through, because they've been at the hands of feeling abandoned or rejected.

GORANI: So an overachiever?

POULTER: The overachiever is about always looking good, achievement versus emotional connection. They're excellent at the bottom line, at being very productive.

On the other hand, they're probably not the best personnel people, because they're very task oriented, performance oriented.

GORANI: All right. And don't like authorities sometimes. How about the compassionate mentor father? Those are the men we congratulate for their parenting style. What kind of workers do they produce?

POULTER: They produce leaders. And even if you've had a father like that, you can become a compassionate mentor with the people in your life and surrounding you.

GORANI: We only have a few minutes. Time bomb father. What does that mean and how does that impact your life when you're in the workplace?

POULTER: The time bomb father is unpredictable. We don't know what he's going to do and typically what that does for a child growing up is they're very anxious. And as a worker they became excellent people at reading, very intuitive. Excellent human resource people.

GORANI: All right. Very disciplinary father. Super achieving. You know, rewards the kid for doing well, for getting good grades. What does that do?

POULTER: It does a lot. The piece about the father factor, it's one piece in a puzzle. Many times we're clear about what the mother's role is but when it comes to fathers we're not quite as clear. A performance oriented father many times will teach their children how to have discipline, be goal oriented and very productive.

GORANI: These are some of our psychologists and your patients come to you. How did you determine these results? you came up with these results after years of observing your patients, how they do at work and asking them what type of father they have?

POULTER: Absolutely. I find many people that have done this over the years will come in to see me, they're not -- they don't understand why their career's not taking off. It's not for lack of ability for talent but many times it has to do with authority figure issues. The absent father, not really knowing their father, and being in the workplace. And not really understanding how it all works.

GORANI: Can you overcome the father factor, though? Can you look at it, understand it and say I'm not going to let this get in my way of success?

POULTER: Absolutely. It's never too late to change the legacy.

GORANI: Quick last question. What kind of father did you have?

POULTER: My father tended to be absent.

GORANI: So you're an overachiever suspicious of authority?

POULTER: Yes, I am.

GORANI: All right, Stephen Poulter, author of "The Father Factor." Thank you so much for being with us here on CNN.

CLANCY: Interesting factor, I wonder how the mother factor work in?

GORANI: I think his point is you know that the mother factor is taken into account, has been studied and acknowledged for a long time.

CLANCY: Fathers, always ignored.

GORANI: All right. Time for us to take a short break.

CLANCY: When we come back we want to open up the in box. You're watching CNN.

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