Motherhood and Leadership: Making a connection

I want to explore the link between motherhood and leadership. There’s the often cited benefit of mothers in the workplace being really focused, highly efficient and good at getting things done. Which is true, and I think it goes beyond that. 

In my experience, parenting is a journey of constant learning and, if we choose it to be, personal growth. We create our own family cultures either intentionally or not. If we’re intentional about it, we identify our shared values/ ways of doing things, choose what to bring with us from our own upbringing and that of our partner’s, and what to ditch that’s not fit for purpose. We set boundaries for our children and tell them lovingly when they’ve strayed beyond them. And importantly, we can’t expect our children to do things if we’re not role modelling those things ourselves. Kids are way too savvy for that and will give feedback! 

Sounds like being a leader, right? 

Today, good leaders and good parents think about how they show up, what they’re role modelling and the impact of their behaviour on those around them. To me, this is the important work of self-awareness and personal growth that’s needed as a foundation to grow our families, and our teams and organisations. 

Just as our kids are learning emotional literacy at school, we might need to become more aware of where we lack connection to our feelings and the emotional language and confidence to express them. We want to create environments where our kids feel safe, the same for our colleagues too, and this might mean looking at the impact of our behaviour on others. When we’re present with our kids, listen to and support/ empower them rather than lecture and fix, we see different results. The same is true at work. I could go on with the connections I see, but I think you get the picture. Not surprisingly, a lot of the tools and techniques I’ve learnt through coaching and in personal and leadership development work I see being used in the parenting space too. 

I believe when we start working on and paying attention to how we parent or to how we lead, the benefits will be felt in the other space too, because at the root it’s about growing ourselves. So perhaps it’s fair to say, being a better parent helps us to be a better leader, and being a better leader helps us to be a better parent. 

What’s been your experience? I would love to hear your thoughts and stories!