If you can’t name a half-decent role model, you can’t work here

An employer in Sweden asks potential hires a seemingly innocuous question, in order to gauge their values without running afoul of strict Swedish labor regulations that ban overly intrusive or personal inquiries.

It’s this: Aside from family members, who are your role models?

To a shockingly high degree, the interviewees can’t answer the question.

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg takes part in a press conference on June 29, 2023, in Kyiv, Ukraine. (Vitalii Nosach/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images)

They can’t think of a single human being they view as a role model, with the possible exception of climate activist Greta Thunberg, whose name comes up frequently.

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The most satisfying answer, from the standpoint of the company, is prompt mention of an individual whose products or services make lives better for others – Steve Jobs or Elon Musk, for example. It’s OK if the role models cited are less than perfect as human beings, as long as they contribute to society. 

Management at that Swedish firm, which makes high-end products sold all over the world, finds it dismaying that so many well-trained, well-educated, smart people have practically no one to inspire them.

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Why do so many job seekers cite Greta Thunberg? The overwhelming career aspiration among young people is influencer. In secular Europe, climate action is practically a religion. So, according to the Swedish CEO, Thunberg is a modern-day Joan of Arc, combining classical idealism with the modern-day urge to get "likes." And on top of that, she really doesn’t have to do very much – just bash the West for destroying the world. Nice work if you can get it.

But for role models, that’s about it.

How sad.

Martin Luther King Jr. speaks at a rally held at the Robert Taylor Houses in Chicago, 1960s. (Robert Abbott Sengstacke/Getty Images)

It used to be that you could ask a total stranger on a flight or a coffee shop who their role models were, and you’d get ready answers. Not that anyone asked total strangers for their role models, but if you did, you’d get names. JFK. Martin Luther King Jr. Winston Churchill. Henry Ford. Or if they were truly historically inclined, Joan of Arc.

So whatever happened to the concept of role models?

In an age of social media (yes, we’ll start off by bashing social media), our mindset is ahistorical. All we think is about what’s trending, not what’s lasting. Our devices increase our sense of self-importance far out of proportion to who we really are. My phone. My feed. My timeline. My, my, my. It’s all about me, so what do I need a role model for?

President John F. Kennedy delivers his inaugural address on Jan. 20, 1961, in Washington. (AP Photo/File)

In an age when we simply know too much about famous people, we balance their accomplishments against their shortcomings in ways that prior generations never did. Yes, JFK was a great president and would never have allowed us to become enmeshed in Vietnam. He would have slowed the nuclear arms race with the Soviets, had he lived. But he was serially unfaithful to Jackie, so no role model he.

MLK? Same argument. Prayer and player, all in one. How can I look up to that?

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On top of that, the world just looks too big, its problems too intractable, to make a difference. The Earth’s climate, the political climate, the social climate... it all seems impossible to fix. So why bother?

Heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali stands over Sonny Liston during their second bout in 1965, taunting him to get up during their title fight. (Getty Images)

Generations ago, individuals toiling upward in the night created breakthroughs that served humanity – Marie Curie and Watson and Crick come to mind. Today, developing a new drug or scientific breakthrough is the purview of Big Pharma or Big Science. Inspired individuals need not apply.

What about sports figures? When Charles Barkley told us decades ago that he was not a role model, we suddenly grasped that athletes were athletes and nothing more. Michael Jordan famously declined to participate in civil rights issues, reminding us that "Republicans buy sneakers." 

Compare and contrast with Jim Brown, who mediated gang disputes in Los Angeles for decades after his retirement from football, or Muhammed Ali, who gave up his career because of his religious beliefs. ("I’ll beat ‘em up, but I won’t kill ‘em.")

Chief Justice Earl Warren (Getty Images)

Clarence Darrow defended the poor and helpless, those without resources to fight massive state power. Chief Justice Earl Warren defied President Eisenhower, who appointed him, by defending the Constitution and freedom, not the Republican Party’s principles. Find me a judge or lawyer today who can serve as a role model. I’ll wait.

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So much for science, sports, and the courts.

In times past, the world found statesmen and stateswomen who had a vision for their societies that far outstripped taking polls and fashioning policies accordingly. Gandhi wanted to get the British out of India. FDR wanted to save the Free World. Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto, Israel’s Golda Meir and India’s Indira Gandhi put paid the idea that women couldn’t lead. Today, anyone with a half a brain runs screaming from the cesspool that is modern electoral politics.

George Orwell, the author of "1984." (ullstein bild via Getty Images)

My role models, not that anyone asked, have remained consistent since my teen years. George Orwell and Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who wrote courageously about their societies, at the risk of disapproval and punishment. Would dropping their names get me a job in Sweden? Maybe.

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The point is that we all need stars to steer by, not influencers to envy, not politicians to despise, not religious leaders to sneer at. Instead, it’s time to stop, take stock, and ask, who are my role models? Who sets an example that I can grow toward? 

We must be heliotropes, drawn by the warmth of the sun to raise ourselves to our full height. And if it seems as though the world is just too hard to change, we must find resonance in Gandhi’s imperative: "What you do is insignificant, but it’s essential that you do it."

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