By Leslie S Pratch
Some people get rigid with age. They do not grow. Others continue to be open. They grow and differentiate, and their experiences contribute to their greater self-confidence, ability to cope with complexity, and integrity.
You see it in the Lord of the Rings. Frodo was chosen to get the ring and destroy it. In the beginning he was very hesitant. The hobbits are among the weakest of all the characters there, they are smaller, more civilized, and more verbal and less warrior like. They got more mature, differentiated, learned how to read others and as they had to, they became more physical. Even the superheroes, the Batman character, Bruce Wayne, or Spiderman, get these powers but they learn you have to mature and use those powers. In almost every mystery I read, all the heroes have this perseverance of active copers.
The Harry Potter character is also a very active coper. Looking at the development of him, whatever flaws he has, you see his ability to see the world in a differentiated way. Active copers don’t run away from that perception; they tolerate tremendous tension (it’s not just all good and all evil), then come up with creative active coping and every time they cope with it, they grow more confident, and they grow in their knowledge and abilities and there’s always the next challenge, they never run away from it, they tolerate the tension much better than others, and they triumph and keep on growing and growing.
These heroes have a sense of integrity, see what they want, don’t run away from seeing the problems, and when they get frustrated, they bounce back until they succeed and that builds their sense of confidence and it goes on and on and on. The prototypical mystery detective and superheroes in Western cultures all seem to have that active coping where life never crushes them despite hardships.
Developing active coping is a structural phenomenon. It takes time.
But initially, all other things being equal, good active coping comes from identifying with good caring parents. Children internalize the emotional connection and the parenting relationships they experience.
Leslie S. Pratchis the founder and CEO of Pratch & Company. A clinical psychologist and MBA, she advises private equity investors, management committees and Boards of Directors of public and privately held companies whether the executives being considered to lead companies possess the psychological resources and personality strengths needed to succeed. In her recently published book, Looks Good on Paper?(Columbia University Press, 2014), she shares insights from more than twenty years of executive evaluations and offers an empirically based approach to identify executives who will be effective within organisations – and to flag those who will ultimately very likely fail – by evaluating aspects of personality and character that are hidden beneath the surface.
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