Parenting and Leadership – Not Much Difference

Someone once told me that you never live until you experience a “Significant Life Event.” There are many significant life events: marriage, divorce, job change, moving, buying a new home, accidently dropping your cell phone in the toilet, raising kids…

Certainly, these significant life events shape our lives, especially parenting as it relates to leadership.

Parenting has helped me understand what it takes to get results as a leader. If you think about it, being a parent is not much different than being a leader of a team, work group, or even CEO of a major corporation.

Many lessons we learn as leaders / managers at work can translate directly to home as parents and vise-versa. Am I taking considerable risk here when I hint to compare employees and/or employee groups to raising kids? Probably not.

I’ve heard some parents say, “My home is not a democracy, it’s a dictatorship!” Consequently, I’ve heard supervisors (airline captains, flight leaders) at work say the same thing about running their jobs or flights. Whatever your parenting or leadership style, I maintain there probably should be a healthy balance between the two.

The older and more wiser our children (employees)become, we should engage them more in soliciting their opinions when faced with issues/challenges at work and home. Often, the best solutions come from implementing the very ideas of those who are involved in and closest to the problem – the people we supervise!

For example: My son, Michael. Great kid! Wants to be a pilot when he grows up – imagine that! He soloed at 16, obtained his Private Pilots License at 17, doing great school, but he has his shortcomings (like we all have). One of his is downfalls is housekeeping! Do you have any “Housekeeping” issues at home or work? Yup, that’s what I thought. Anywho, Michael leaves his stuff laying around the house, and I end up having to nag-nag-nag him to keep his stuff cleaned up. “Michael, are these your shoes?” “Whose shirt is this?” “These your dishes in the sink – they go in the dishwasher” “Wipe off the table please” (nag – nag – nag) Finally, I had enough. I simply dictated a solution without soliciting his input involved.

I dictated a solution, and here’s how it turned out. When Michael came home from school that day, I gave him the deal!

I said “Michael! I’m through nagging you about keeping your stuff picked up. At the end of the day, if I see your stuff out ,I’ll pick it up for you and put it away. No fuss at all”

He cocked his eyebrow slightly as the small grin on my face widened.

I continued, “My new business is called, ‘Dad’s Maid Service With A Smile!’”

Michael nodded apprehensively as he waited for “the catch.”

I said, “I’m going to charge you one dollar for every item I pick up and put away!” For emphasis, I slapped my right hand against my open and outstretched left palm as I proclaimed, “At the end of the week, I’m going to submit an invoice and collect my money!”

He nodded hesitantly at my proclamation, but what choice did he have? I’m the boss, and what I say goes! Right?!

With new marching orders in hand, I gave him confident pat on the back, and confidently strode off with our new agreement firmly understood.

At the end of the first week, “Dad’s Maid Service” had picked up and put away eight of his items. Sweet! According to the agreement, Michael owed me eight bucks, eight big ones, eight smackers!! And I can’t wait to collect!

I print up an invoice – I saunter into Michael’s bedroom to collect my hard earned cash! “Hey Buddy!” I state vociferously, “It’s the end of the week, and Dad’s Maid Service With A Smile has an invoice for you!”

I nonchalantly flip it on his desk and declare, “It’s time to pay! You owe me 8 bucks!!”

Michael looks at my hand, and without a word, he dutifully pulls out his wallet. The grin on my face grows bigger as he pulls out a crisp 10 dollar bill and places it in my waiting palm. He looks at me with a grin bigger than mine, and says, “Keep up the good work dad; keep the change.”

I’ve got my hand stretched waaaaay out, my fingers are making an obnoxious gimme-gimme motion.

As I stood there, chuckling to myself like a hoodwinked fool, I was once again reminded that dictating solutions to others without their input can backfire on you.

When you dictate solutions to your eomplyees, are they really “onboard” when they nod their head in “agreement”?

Being a parent/ leader / manager is never easy. Just because we have “authority” over someone doesn’t mean they can’t provide us with solutions or ideas to problems in the work place.

As leaders, there is a balance to strike between dictating and actively soliciting and implementing ideas from those who work for us.

You might be surprised at their ingenuity!