Leadership and Parenting… what’s the connection?
Over the years of leading teams and coaching people in leadership positions, a variety of subjects have come up: culture and values, growth mindset, the balance between autonomy and top down decision making, effective communication styles, stress management and psychological safety, to name a few.
Now that I am also a mother of two, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the many parallels between leadership and parenthood. I’m finding so many of the challenges and the decision making I had to do with my teams not that different from the challenges and the decision making I am doing at home, just in a vastly different context.
Upon further investigation, I found 3 main common themes between leadership and parenthood: polarities, control, and ego.
Polarities
We want to avoid being “helicopters” or micromanagers but might not feel comfortable completely letting go of the reins. We want to be present and available, but not to the detriment of our own sanity. We want to answer an important email (even when it’s a Saturday evening), and we want to comfort our non sleeping toddler (even if it’s at 3am), but we don’t want to find ourselves realizing that it’s been 6 months since we’ve been to the gym or had a date with our partner. We want to foster autonomy, but we know that sometimes we just need to make a top down decision.
There seems to be a constant dance between extremes that we try to navigate. Unfortunately we might not feel it right away when we have tipped too far to one side. We get lost in our day to day routines and we lose the connection with our own “scale”. Perhaps we’ve been too authoritarian, or too flexible, or perhaps we’ve not been present enough. Often we only notice it when we see the consequences in our teams or in our kids, and then it can take quite a bit of time before we recover and re-balance. In fact we might find ourselves tipping too far the other way first, before we find our happy medium. How do we prepare for this? (Also see “5 ways in which Mindfulness can help you at work”).
Balancing your polarities
I invite you to write down:
All your polarities.
What are the concrete signs that they are in balance?
What are the concrete signs that they are out of balance?
Who in your team or in your family could help you point out when things might be tipping too far to one side?
What do you need to put in place to help keep yourself in balance?
Control
Remember the first weeks of a new leadership role when we are beyond excited about what we are planning on achieving? New ideas, new projects, expanding the team, a change in culture, aggressive timelines etc. Or when we are still pregnant and we have these fantasies of what life with kids will be like? Who are kids will become and how our relationship will be? It never quite works out the way we had envisioned it right? Unforeseen challenges get in the way, things we couldn’t have planned for, things we could have never imagined before, and often things take much longer than we anticipated.
Ultimately we discover that we don’t have as much power as we thought we did. The concept of “hierarchy” messes us up. Because we are “the boss” or because we are older and more experienced in life, we think we have more control. Yet reality swoops in quite soon, and we find ourselves facing a mountain of uncertainty. How do we come to terms with this?
Accepting your lack of control
I invite you to write down:
All the things that you have 0% control over (like the weather).
All the things that you have 100% control over (like what you eat for breakfast).
All the things you might have some influence over, but not full control (like someone else’s decision making).
Observe this list closely and see what you notice?
What can you do to help you focus on the things you have 100% control over?
Ego
When someone compliments our children we automatically feel a sense of pride don’t we? At the same time when our child is the loud one throwing sand at the other kids on the playground, we might feel a little sting. When someone younger or with less experience gets promoted before we do, it shows up. When you write “CEO” next to your name on LinkedIn, it’s there too. Yes, our ego.
The most comprehensive way the ego has ever been described to me was by Dr Shefali Tsabary. She explains that our “ego masks” (the many different parts of us that can show up in various scenarios in our lives) come from fear. They show up as a soldier to protect us, but despite having “good intentions”, they are most often unproductive and at times even destructive in our interactions, or detrimental to our decision making. (Also check out the workshop “Keeping Cool Under Pressure”).
“There is only fear, at the bottom of every reaction. Even under arrogance. Even under hubris. Even under pride…Fear of not being liked, fear of not being accepted, fear of not fitting in, fear of losing control.” - Dr. Shefali Tsabary
When we are showing up with an ego mask on, we are most likely operating from a part of our nervous system (sympathetic) where we are not showing up with the most compassionate energy, with the most creativity, with the best social skills, or with the most rational thought. The sooner we can catch ourselves, the sooner we can switch back to our (parasympathetic) nervous system, in which our ability to connect and respond and decide increases. When are coming from a place with an ego mask on, we are not going to approach people or situations in a way that is most authentic or most productive.
How does this knowledge help us at work, or at home? Like most things, awareness is the first step. Even just saying to yourself “ego!” is helpful in your day to day. This is because the mere exercise of actually labeling an experience or a feeling, re-engages our prefrontal cortex (the rational part of our brain), taking us out of our emotional reaction and enabling us to see things more clearly. Without judgement, just being aware of when, how, where, with who, and in what scenarios you can sense your ego coming out, will help you discern when you’re showing up as fully authentic, and when you might not be.
Becoming aware of your ego masks
I invite you to write down for yourself:
Whenever you think your ego has come into play
What happened right before?
What happened right after?
What was the ego trying to do?
What was the underlying fear?
What did you need in that moment?
The beauty of tying leadership to parenthood is that many of us are both, many of the required skills and challenges overlap, and so do many of the tools that you can learn. What are some of your most effective rituals? Ways of resolving interpersonal issues? Tools for feedback conversations? Tricks that help you focus? (Also check out the workshop “Neuroscience 101”).
When you experience conflict at home, you might recognize similar patterns at work, and vice versa. I invite you to think about the overlaps, and how you might be able to help yourself. And by doing so, your team and your family.
About the author:
Noreen Chadha is a transformational coach in the field of leadership and conscious parenting. Drawing on her knowledge of mindfulness and neuroscience, she supports clients to move towards a more present, joyful and peaceful way of living, leading and parenting.
