I have to say, having worked in the corporate world for a few years now, paired with my therapy training, it has become much easier for me to understand people’s underlying motivations.

As my mentor Marisa Peer always says, the #1 pandemic is that people don’t feel enough.

They feel like they constantly have to prove their worth to other people, as if their acknowledgement of it will make them feel better. Temporarily, sure it does. But when you give other people the power to make you feel good, you also give them the power to take it away.

Ironically, one of the top motivating factors for employees is recognition (Team, 2024).

Yet, seeking out external validation breeds a feeling of not-enoughness, such that you don’t already feel enough and validated within, so you must get someone outside of you to pat you on the back and recognize a job well-done.

This creates a sticky situation in most workplaces, as it is natural to want the approval of supervisors for the work you contribute, and when you don’t get it, you lose motivation or become increasingly competitive with coworkers.

What the corporate world really needs is employees who are driven by intrinsic motivation (i.e. employees who genuinely enjoy the work and find the completion of it to be rewarding in and of itself). 

What I’ve also noticed is that the corporate world tends to be rife with enactments of unresolved inner child issues (i.e. mommy and daddy drama).

Little girls and boys who never got the approval of their father or mother, take the imprint of a cold, powerful masculine or feminine figure and implant it onto their male / female supervisors. What ensues is an endless cycle of trying to please the supervisor in an attempt to gain closure with their caregiver. This type of relationship transference happens all the time in all kinds of relationships, yet because our work life is such a significant part of our daily existence, it is most common in the workplace.

This is why our personal inner child healing work is so crucial to making the world a better place. When we heal, the way we show up at work heals. Consequently, leaders and employees at corporations begin to truly act in the highest interest of all, rather than only themselves.

References

Team, M. (2024, March 14). Exploring the benefits of employee recognition programs: Strategies and impacts. Www.mavenclinic.com. https://www.mavenclinic.com/post/exploring-the-benefits-of-employee-recognition-programs-strategies-and-impacts