Role Models & Influence

Why do young people often admire celebrities rather than people they know personally? Because celebrities are edited. You see the achievement, not the decade before it, so they look like proof that something is possible. The people you actually know come with all their complications visible. That said, I think it shifts with age — by the time most people are in their thirties, the people they most admire are usually someone they've met. Do you think parents or teachers have a stronger influence on children? Parents, mostly, though not in the ways they think. The conscious lessons don't stick as well as the habits — how parents handle stress, money, disagreement. Teachers have a narrower window, but a single teacher at the right moment can change what a student thinks they're capable of, and that matters enormously. So the influences are different rather than one being stronger. Should schools teach students about leadership? I'm sceptical of it as a formal subject. Leadership doesn't really transfer through lessons — it develops through actually running something, ideally something where the outcome matters to real people. The schools that seem to do it well create those situations: a real project, a genuine decision, a group that depends on you. That's very different from a module on leadership skills. Have role models in society changed over recent decades? The range has widened. Fifty years ago the visible ones were politicians, athletes, entertainers. Now you have scientists, activists, independent creators with large followings. Whether that's straightforwardly better I'm not sure — the barrier to becoming someone people admire has dropped, and what some people admire is essentially just the ability to get attention. How important is it to have role models from your own background? Fairly important early on, because seeing someone who started where you did doing what you want to do makes the goal feel possible rather than theoretical. That effect seems to weaken as people develop more confidence. And there's also something valuable in role models who challenge rather than mirror your existing assumptions — that's a different kind of useful.