by Lena Gustafsson
Sweden has a new type of employee – one who values family and work life equally. And it’s a man.
As a coach I know that working to change one piece in a pattern results in changes that spread and make new reflections.
The issue of gender has been visible for quite some time now. Here in Sweden I can see reflections of it in my coaching. Young men are going into careers with a slightly different perspective to that of their older colleagues.
For this ‘New Man’, family and children are important life goals – not just having them and providing for them, but also spending time with them.
Being a present father, taking parental leave, spending evenings with the children, playing an active part. Young men prioritise their years as fathers of home-living kids in a way that is still quite new in many workplaces.
This raises challenges when building careers, because these are still ambitious men – challenges that involve standing up for yourself, calmly relying on your ability to combine family and work time, and finding your own way of doing both – sometimes in spite of a less than understanding workplace.
Organisations are ill-equipped to deal with ambitious staff who also prioritise parenting. Their leaders are often older, with grown-up children, and did not themselves have the same opportunities and life expectations as the New Man.
The old way of thinking involved making one choice: family or career. The parents of today want to have it all – mothers and fathers consider both their work and parenting equally important. Challenges find their way into coaching sessions; in leaders being coached on how to handle new expectations and goals from staff and even more so in young men being coached on life goals, career choices and finding new ways forward. In coaching, clashes between goals, values, expectations and reality are faced and handled – and unique solutions are created as fatherhood is given time and space.
Firmly anchored in their personal values and goals these men start to become part of this changing force. They do it by suggesting different time frames, seeking effectiveness to avoid long hours, prioritising differently and innovating meeting formats as well as working routines.
They are making room for empathy, co-working and strategic alliances with other young men and women in order to create a working life that allows them to build a career while being a present parent.
This change also leads to challenges for companies that want to have access to top candidates. When they make room for life goals and family life they become an attractive employer to such candidates. Similarly, those companies that won’t adapt – retaining the old structures and putting pressure on employees – may face a negative impact on branding, difficulties in recruitment and, in the long run, risk being left behind, while ambitious and innovative candidates look elsewhere for work.
In my coaching practice here in Sweden,
I can see these issues surfacing as more young men challenge themselves to find a way to become a New Man in a more equal society, respecting the work of their wife, facing their own life goals and the expectations of colleagues and management. It is not easy, but piece by piece a new world is appearing as the collective way of thinking around work and family changes.
Lena Gustafsson is a professional coach and master of social sciences based in Småland, Sweden. As an ICF-certified PCC coach she works with clients from Sweden and internationally
www.guldkanten.com
Coaching at Work, Volume 8 ,Issue 5