📍 Hi, everyone. Welcome to Unleash Your leadership. On this episode, I wanted to talk to about a very special topic. Of course, it relates to leadership. But first. We are almost at the end of summer. Which means for those of you who have kids in school, that means back to school time. That's the same for me as well. I'm a parent of one and this week our school started.
There's a little bit of jubilation, but that means summer is over. Which means you not necessarily getting as much time with your kids. But they're excited because it's a new year. They're in school.
The reason I bring this up is because over the past couple of weeks, I've been thinking about. How being a parent is very similar to being a leader. Or being a manager who has a team.
The moment This came to me was when. My kid. Went to an overnight camp. A couple of weeks ago with summer camp, they had this thing where they spend the night away, they go camping. This was the first time. That my kid was going to an overnight camp. It was probably one of the first time that they were spending.
Without parents. Without us.
For some reason or the other, I never had a lot of babysitting done. This wasn't necessarily something very something you that we either ask the parents or the kid was used to. When they were away for the night, I had a little bit of anxiety or little nervousness because it was their first time I think
They were feeling that a little bit and. It becomes very it's emotional. But where, you know, that as a parent, That is something that you have to. Let go. You have to make them. Independent and have them go and do the things. And you're not always going to be there. For whatever number of things that come up.
That's what got me thinking about. What are the leadership lessons that we learn from being a parent? How does that make us as leaders? And. How might. The leadership skills that we learn in the workplace. Be used as a parent. Really this episode is all about leadership lessons from being a parent.
Or leadership lessons that you can apply to be a better parent.
I have a few things that I want to talk about here. Now. If you don't have kids. This is totally fine. I still hope that these lessons make sense, because if you are leading a team or an organization, these things, and these lessons and skills are still important. Irrespective where you are in your life and whether you have kids or not, it doesn't matter.
Because these lessons are really universal. What the takeaway I want you to have is that. How you can lead and manage teams in a more effective manner and how that helps you become a better leader.
First up especially if you're a leader or manager already, you may realize this. , all parents out there realize this it is a lot of hard work. Leadership is a lot of hard work. It is very difficult. That's why there are so many topics, so many. Conversations and books about leadership skills.
It is a hard thing. And there is a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes. What that means is it is not always visible. And it is not always recognized. Sometimes it's expected. It's taken for granted. If you are a parent you can tell, there's so much you do as a parent. That you're expected to do.
There isn't necessarily always recognition around it. You may not necessarily be visible.
Maybe you are not making it visible, because we don't think of it as anything special. Or it necessarily is again, part of the job. Know that getting into leadership and, or being a leader, doesn't come easily.
Especially as a lot of you may be thinking about your career growth. If you're not already in a management or a leadership position, and you're thinking about that as the. Next. Step for your career know that there is a lot of extra work.
There's more work than what you already have to work with. Not every single thing will be visible or recognized and you have to be okay with that. There will be other things that you can do to be able to continue to make impact and bring recognition and visibility to you.
Second. When you have a team.
When you have. Kids.
It can be really hard work, but if you talk to any parent. Our any manager when your team does well or when your kid does well, they do something great. Whatever that might be overcoming obstacles, learning a new skill. There's a sense of pride.
It's very similar. It feels the same way when I was a manager. When I started managing a team and somebody on my team did really well and they got kudos from somebody else in the organization. I felt proud, like a proud parent. And, and that's all parents do, especially when somebody else says, oh, , they're so great at this. Or they're, they're great at this skill or see how well they did in that class.
Or that meeting. That sense of pride. That feeling is very, very similar. You want to be able to channel that feeling? Because while it's hard work. There is a reward. So know that. Yes, I was cautioning, you know, that there's a lot of hard work. Know that there's a lot of reward at the end of it. There's a sense of pride that necessarily doesn't come.
When only when you do the things, because now you know that there are other people. And somehow you have played a part in enabling them.
The third thing I want to say is when they do something well, Praise them. Every leader, every manager, every parent should do this is. Praise them so that it raises their self-esteem and their confidence. Give them that recognition. This is something very important. I learned on much earlier in my leadership journey, because it was important that every person.
Gets the recognition gets the praise ask them how they like it. But make sure they are praised. Make sure that you acknowledge the work that they're doing, the effort that they're making. Not every single effort is. Going to result in some massive impact and that's okay. The important thing is that they put in the effort, they tried and they learned if there were any mistakes and you want to be able to acknowledge and you recognize that. That really helps build strong.
Leaders. If you're trying to build other leaders up, this is really important. And same thing goes when you're a parent, you're trying to make them self-confidence so that they can go out there in the world. And be on their own.
Then the next natural step comes up, which is. share that pride. Other people around you. If you heard something from. A partner organization or another stakeholder on how well a team member is doing share that with them. But , if , somebody on the team is doing that, share that with other people who matter.
Maybe it's in a all hands, maybe it's in maybe it's comes in a form of a reward or maybe a shout out in a meeting or in a. Email update that goes out to the organization. That acknowledgement that shout out will really motivate them to continue to do more. It's like when kids. Do well in exams and they get good grades. It motivates them.
It's a positivite enforcement. You want to be able to do the same with your team.
Make sure you're sharing that recognition, not just with them personally, , , great job. You did well, but tell others how well they did.
Number five. On leadership lesson. That I've learned from being a parent and very much applicable. Is you have to let them make mistakes.
This is the thing I was sharing earlier where I know it was really hard for me to see my kid go away on an overnight camp. And I was like, , are they going to lose something? Are they going to. Be able to pack everything back. What if the mess something up or if they forget something, what.
What if it doesn't matter? If it's a mistake, it's a mistake. It doesn't matter. As long as they are safe. What that equates to in any leadership role, when you're working with the team is let them make mistakes. Let them deal with failure. And support them through that endeavor. It's important for us as leaders to tell our teams that it's okay to make mistakes, that they will not be reprimanded for the mistakes.
What's important is that you are there to support them. And, and that you want to be able to learn from it. Coach them through that. . Act coach, like when you're working with them in terms of what, what could be done differently next time. What are the different support or skills you need? What habits do you need to build?
That support and coaching mechanism really helps them see any mistake. As a data point for learning. So. It makes them less afraid to take risks when you're not afraid. When you don't fear something. You will go for those things. When you take those risks is where on the other side, there are rewards. It doesn't matter if there was a mistake or two.
As long as you learn from it. Make sure that. You're not being over-protective of your team members or, or your team. You are enabling them. You're letting them go out there, give them the tools, give them the support, but let them do it on their own because when they do it on their own way, learn on their own.
If you continue to do everything for them, it will not help them grow and become better in their abilities and eventually get to where they want to in their career.
Same lines.
The sixth lesson is enable them to make good decisions. While you want to leave them out there. , let them make mistakes. You want to be able to give them. Frameworks and systems that will help them make good decisions as any parent. If my kid goes to high school tomorrow.
I I'm not going to be there. I don't know what's going on. I don't know. What are the influences of the peer groups that they're going to have? , this makes me nervous. But what I can control, what I can do as a parent is to teach them. What a good decision means. And how to make good decisions and what would a bad decision and consequences look like? Or, , what is the impact?
On themselves, on their family, the neighbors, society, whatever it might be. It's the same thing with your team members, help them understand what constitutes good practices versus not so good practices, how to get to a certain point. If they're out there and they want to go. Do a presentation and it's their first time doing a presentation. Tell.
Give them some support in terms of what they might do. What are the best practices of a good presentation? But after that you leave that. And you go and let them go forward and do it. If, if you involve them in certain decision-making, then they get better at their own decision-making skills, which then means that they can go and make better decisions.
Involve them in your decision-making as well. That way it makes them feel part of it. And then they get the practice so that they can go and do it on their own as well.
The second thing is , make them independent. All of these things where we're talking about, let them go make mistakes, let them make decisions. This enables them where you're not necessarily being over-protective or always there or micromanaging in management terms. You are making them independent, you're letting them go do those things. And the reason is so that you can go work on other priorities.
So if you are a parent you know that maybe you need time to attend to household chores. Maybe you go need to run errands. If you cannot get away and make your kids independent from an early age, it's hard to do that. And then it's the same thing as a leader. If you can let. Your team or team members own something, give them complete ownership of certain things.
Let them do it. Then you can go to other things that are still important for the organization that are still part of your responsibilities. If you're trying to do every single thing, it's hard. You're, again, you're going to not just work extra hard, but even, , It's going to impact your work-life balance.
Continue to make your team members independent. In fact, help them become leaders, help them. Build the skills so that they can replace you. This part can be very. Disconcerting. But if you can make people. And enable them and help them build the skills to replace you. That means you can go do.
Higher priority things for you. And they will be ready to take on when you're ready to move. Do something better or bigger?
Number eight.
As a parent oftentimes when our kids are little, we tend to think of them as kids. And we don't talk to them in a way that.
. Gives them the same respect that we would talk with an adult. Most kids are very, very understanding. They have a lot of insight. As a parent, What many people do and consider it good as talk to them as adults give them the respect. You want respect, give them the respect. They are obviously going to emulate you in many ways.
They're already capable. They can be there to help. Involve them just, just like you would more grown-up child or an adult.
Ask them about their decisions, ask them about what's important to them. Make them see, make them feel heard. Don't talk them down. These are all things that are important, even in a leadership perspective. When you have your own team. Even if you have a very junior team member, it doesn't matter.
, you're going to give them maybe a little bit extra support. But. Make them feel like they're already capable of doing great things. And give them that respect.
What you. Show up as a leader, how you behave as a leader or a manager. Those are the things that they see. There are two things, that can happen from there either they say, okay, this is how managers are, and this is how I'm going to behave. Or , this doesn't seem right then. So I'm going to do something different.
One of those two things are going to happen. Which one we don't know. But what's in your control is how you come across. And. Treating everyone with respect, even if they don't know everything. Even if they don't have as much experience as you or as much expertise as you. They still have something that we can learn from.
Be curious and ask them for their opinions, even if they're they're fresh out of college, it doesn't matter. , we're getting down to number nine now here.
For people for parents who have two kids, they will tell you that each of their kids is so different than the other. Oftentimes, this is, this is generally a running joke. They have, the people often have one kid and maybe it seems like, , everything was cool. And. I know it was easy and then have the second kid and it's completely opposite in a much more difficult.
Most of them will tell you, there's such complete opposites that any parenting learnings and skills or whatever they had. With the first one doesn't apply those same rules or same systems. Don't apply to the second one. What that means in terms of leadership and management, is everybody on your team is different.
They are individual people. You cannot combine them into thinking everybody needs the same. Kind of things from me as a leader, as a manager. You have to adapt your leadership style. To the needs of your team members. There's a very famous concept of leadership called situational leadership. And you can go ahead and Google that and, and search, but essentially what it does is it tells you that you have to adjust in terms of what is the direction and support and guidance that you are giving.
an individual. Based on the task they about to do. And their competency and confidence. Those two things count. So if they are low competence, but high confidence, there's something different. You do. If there are high con competence, but low confidence, you, your approach needs to change.
There are four different categories of those things where you need to be able to adjust your leadership style. That's important because. If you're very. Maybe you're a very hands-off type person, which is great because then you're not a micromanager.
But. There's a junior member on your team, or maybe a member on the team is doing something maybe for the first time. They might need a little bit of support. You cannot treat them. Even if they're senior, you cannot treat them the same as somebody who has done that task for the hundredth time. Making that distinction really.
Allows you to meet. Your team where they are. This will really enable them to go further. Right. You're going to teach them, you're going to enable them.
Finally something, a friend of mine told me. which is. As a parent
Maybe after two, three. Everybody has individual. Thresholds, but as a parent, at some point you decide I don't want any more children.
That's what one decides, like, , I have one it's enough. I have two it's enough. Maybe it's three, four, whatever that number. But you decide. . I don't need to continue to have more children to feel. XYZ. It's the same way with being a manager. If you're getting into a leadership role, know that it's okay to at some point feel like I don't need a bigger team.
Maybe you are good with six people and that's all you want. Maybe you have. One or two teams under you with a couple of managers and that's all. And maybe, , the director, VP that's not for you. That's okay, but that's for you to decide. It's not for anybody else to decide or not based on what's the.
Best way in quotation marks to get to the top of the corporate ladder. You can decide that this type of and this setup of a leadership role is good enough for me. And. While I would love to continue to do more and more challenging things. It doesn't necessarily translate to how many people am I.
Directly or indirectly managing. That will really help you carve out what success means for you as a leader. Because oftentimes we chase titles and we chase. Certain number of team size and things like that. And. That comes with its own interesting complications. If you're ready for that. Great. If you're motivated and energized for that, that's great as well.
But if it feels like that's not something that would. Make you fulfilled, or if you are more where you would like to solve. Be very hands-on and close to the problem. Maybe a different route would be best.
With that, I hope that these 10 leadership. Lessons from being a parent were interesting. I don't know if you have given a thought to it or not. And if you have share with me what resonates most. If there are other things that you have in terms of leadership lessons or , lessons from being a parent that could be applicable in a leadership world.
Share comment and, drop me a note. I would love to hear your perspective and what. What you have gone through and your own experience as well. with that thank you for listening to this episode of unleash your leadership. I will see you on another episode. Take care.
