Role Model

A role model is someone with whom individuals identify to whom they look for guidance regarding appropriate values, attitudes, identities, and behaviors. The idea of modeling comes from social cognitive theory and is based on the notion that people learn most of their values, attitudes, and behaviors not from direct experience but by observing the behavior and experience of others, especially those they admire and respect. Research on ethical role models at work as described by those who look to them for guidance indicates that, interestingly, these ethical role models are rarely chief executive officers of organizations. Rather, they are individuals who have regular and close contact with the observers who lookup to them; the observers believe that theyreally know how the role model thinks ...