A good employee is not codependent
I feel terrible when I honestly think about how I have been conditioned to seek rewards.
In school, I have been rewarded for thinking like the teacher, getting the right answers on a test, or doing as I'm told. In my musical training, it looks like performing a preferred interpretation, physically conducting like my mentor, or following their advice without question. In the professional space, it's jumping onto a popular trend, doing gigs that colleagues say I "should" do, and coveting a review by a credible source.
By doing these things, I would get the reward of an excellent grade, verbal praise, or a feeling of affirmation. It feels good when people like me, favor me, and promote me.
So I seek these rewards. I've become so wired to choose actions and words to please others, to oblige as they wish, and to gain their acceptance.
I'm not special, no different than most people who suffer from these behaviors and beliefs. I also recognize that this is a trait of unhealthy codependency since some of my sense of worth comes from these validations.
***
I didn't really consider the implications of codependency on the workplace until I came across the idea that "a good employee is codependent" (and it wasn't presented in a positive light).
It got me thinking: commonly defined "good" employees are indeed codependent! And it makes sense if we consider how we've been trained to seek rewards.
A "good" employee will do their best to please their boss or leader. They will do as they are told. They will follow the rules. They are yes people and find it difficult to say no. They avoid conflict. They make it work no matter what. They value the desires and needs of the leader over their own. They will do an excellent job.
This actually sounds a lot like our accepted description of a good (and successful) orchestral musician.
The problem is that in having these behaviors, they will likely surrender their own ideas, their comfort, their needs, their values, their interests, and perhaps even their ethical boundaries.
***
So I wonder if that truly makes for a "good" employee?
Yes, a good employee does excellent work. Yet, we'd also want them to be "good" because they challenge the status quo, they ask questions to uncover what better may look like, they want to have artistic breakthroughs, and they have worthy opinions - because they are intelligent and engaging people.
If we accept that a good employee is codependent, we do ourselves a huge disservice. We're not only allowing the unhelpful codependency to continue, but we are missing out on untapped potential in what our people may have to offer.
To address this, a good place to start is to recognize that this is unhealthy behavior and begin to adjust our expectations of the musician-and-boss relationship.
A good employee is not codependent.
(And codependency appears in leaders too. Here's more about that.)
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