The ambiguous relationships between fathers and daughters is casting a shadow that touches the relationships between some men and women inside corporations.

One of the main problems men can face in forming good working relationships with women comes from a problem women often grow up with: of having learned too much obedience to their father - and, by example, to men in power.

Men in executive positions can sometimes find themselves, "like a father", surrounded by a pool of younger executive-material women, some of whom are expected to rise in management.

How do men feel about this? Is the interaction going smoothly, with women being promoted "just like men"?

There is some progress, but statistics indicate problems: while the "pool of younger women" has been around since the 1960s when large numbers of women first completed college and gained university degrees, the percentage in boardrooms remains pitifully low, as does the percentage of female chief executives.

They say men still do not see them as equals. The few exceptions - men working with women chief executives and mixed boards of directors - are inspiring, but rare.

Yet many men sense that something is not right and begin to feel uncomfortable. For the past decades, the focus has been on female psychology and the need for women to change.

Now, the focus is shifting to men as they express an increasing sense of discomfort; many have changed inwardly, and want to be able to change outwardly, as I discovered during re-search for my latest book*.

Unfortunately, the male corporate system frowns on men behaving "differently".

On the other hand, how do women react to male power? When a woman works for a man, they may each find themselves under the spell of a series of predetermined cultural expectations that govern how they relate.

For younger women trying to work out how to win promotion or be taken seriously, it can seem logical to develop a closer relationship with the boss, usually male.

This might sound right, and both men and women do it, but for a woman trying to get a male boss to take notice and promote her is quite different from that of a younger male employee dealing with a male boss. In short, when the question becomes, "why doesn't so-and-so see my merits and promote me?", women can be tempted to score points with the chief by pushing buttons the boss responds to, being either a "good daughter" (loyal and obedient), or the reverse icon, a sexual rebel daughter.

The parallels between family histories recorded by Hite Research in the early 1990s and the corporate situation today are stunning. It shows how the way girls grow up in families influences how women in corporations relate to their bosses or men in authority, and how corp-orate "daddies" see women around them.

My research in the 1990s shows women describing relationships with their fathers that hold clear parallels with the way they see and behave towards men at work.

Many girls describe a strange mixture of emotions for their fathers: closeness and distance, fear and longing, joy and fury - such as: "I idolised daddy but never understood him."

"We went places together.

I never feared him. He is a lot like me. I have a hard time accepting him and I love him a lot."

By the time a girl is 12 or so, according to my research, her relationship with her father often becomes strained, distant and alienated, sometimes involving violent or angry outbursts. While younger girls and their dads often had fun playing together, now there is a growing distance.

Girls feel confused and ask themselves: "What happened? What did I do?" They often try to change their behaviour, waiting for the father to "see" that they are truly loveable "like before".

At this point, many fathers are consciously trying to distance themselves, having been told that playing and cuddling was all right before, but "now that she is becoming a young woman, this must stop. Keep your distance".

Fathers usually obey this rule, but frequently become hostile, known for their cutting criticisms - "Don't wear that lipstick! You look like a prostitute!"; "You used to be my sweet little girl. What happened?" - and brooding silences, or never being home.

Part of this acceptance by men of the role assigned to them, rather than a more creative development of a new kind of friendship with their daughters, goes back to the training for "masculinity" that most boys endure at school when they are about 12, insisting that "real boys don't have best friends who are girls". The proper stance for a real man, they learned, is to be critical and distant with women.

This new distance between the daughter and father at puberty is something girls do not always accept; they hope it is a stage that will pass. This "waiting for a lost love to return" can become a lifelong emotional pattern, affecting future relationships with men. A woman may later pick "distant" partners or bosses, hoping to make them "see" her, love her.

She may believe, as she did about her father, that no matter how cold or heartless, the man loves her underneath it all. This is especially true since most mothers reassure their daughters, no matter what: "Yes, he loves you really."

On the other hand, a number of girls feel they have a special secret closeness with their fathers, a special relationship, that they are really their father's "favourite", despite the silences, and despite the fact that such a special relationship is almost never acknowledged in words. Such "unspoken alliances" can also be part of the office landscape.

Of course, fathers can have life-cycle problems to deal with that have nothing directly to do with their children. The anger many teenage girls see in their fathers correlates with feelings many men in my research describe in their 40s and 50s. Many feel that although they do almost everything they should as men, taking care of the family, being there, earning a living, somehow they aren't appreciated or satisfied. Many feel empty.

So it is no wonder many "fathers" - in families and corporations - have a hard time figuring out how to relate to their "daughters", since in the holy family model of "family" (in the west) there is no type of relationship men have with women that is not based on gender. The model is one that stresses sexuality as forming the basis of all relationships: sons and mothers, fathers and daughters, wives and husbands - friendship is nowhere on the map.

Conversely, daughters also worry about the nature of their "love" for their fathers. "My mother accused me of being flirtatious with my father. I was really very close with him, but that's not the same thing."

It is possible that girls could have a desire to "seduce" the father, emotionally at least, because this would mean having more power in the family, taking the daughter out of the hated category of the powerless "child". Thus, a slight impulse in this direction might be "natural"; however, to interpret this as perversity on the part of girls would be to make the mistake Freud made when he interpreted girls' desire for the rights of men in society as "penis envy".

This self-consciousness about "the fear of looking the wrong way" lends a sexual atmosphere even where there is none.

In the case of fathers, many feel genuinely confused about their own feelings. Are their feelings sexual or just affectionate? This applies to many men in positions of authority in business, too.

How can a father or a "boss" at work express his feelings of friendship and admiration - even "attraction" - for a woman without being "politically incorrect"? Men have few models for friendship with women and girls, yet the culture urges them that a "real man" should be leering and feel lascivious about younger females. And this may not be what the father or company boss is feeling at all.

There is a need for a new kind of friendship between women and men. It could start between fathers and daughters, but can start at any point in life.

Many men today, as much as women, want to change the atmosphere and have better relationships, but it is difficult for men to behave differently at work.

Most of us today spend most of our time at work: "To have a career," as one chief executive told me, "you have to work 12 hours a day most of the time, then just go home to sleep."

While we can argue whether this should be the case, it is the reality for many. What needs to happen is to make work more enriching. And this means, today, having better relationships at work. * Sex & Business by Shere Hite. Financial Times Prentice Hall. œ19.99. e-mail:s.hite@hite-research.com