When the Work-Slave Wants to Become the Boss
Stuff you probably haven't had to grapple with before.
You have heard it before, people complaining about the lack of
value in their employer. What do they do? they say. What good
are they? Maybe you have asked these questions about your own
employer, or employers in general.
The answer - apart from any specific management, technical or
specialist skills they might possess - lies in the original
master-slave and master-servant relationships. These are what
the employer-employee roles are legally based on.
This master-servant division is based on a belief that the
former knows and has the skills to create and drive the work
required, while the latter carries out the work required.
This division of roles relates to attributes or character or
class or mental facility or education or evolution - according
to its origin in the past when servants and slaves were a normal
part of the workforce, and when master-servant relationships
reflected principles and beliefs about superior and inferior
humans.
This hierarchical attitude to human capacity is also the basis
of our other major relationships: the parent-child and the
student-teacher relationships.
What your boss does for you
The original master-slave arrangement assumed that the slave or
servant did not possess an inherent desire to do what the master
wanted of them, and so force had to be applied to ensure the
work was carried out. The master fulfilled the roles of
motivator, discipliner, direction-setter and the creator and
maintainer of focus.
Similarly, children, needing to be taught many things including
socially acceptable behavior and school lessons, also needed the
parent and teacher to perform these roles of motivator,
discipliner, direction-setter and the creator and maintainer of
focus.
Your limitations
Now, let me clarify a vital point here. Employees, along with
children, need to motivate themselves to perform their
individual required tasks. They need to say, 'I will write that
report now', or, 'I will wash those pots now', or 'I will teach
that class now'. Yet behind these acts of self-motivation there
is the primary motivator: their employer keeping task
expectation up, continuing to provide the job, and continuing to
provide the pay-check.
Do not confuse secondary task motivation with primary
motivation. Primary motivation becomes easier to see when you
imagine taking the employer out of the equation.