5 ways being a dad has (hopefully) made me a better leader

I’ve been a father for half of my life. 27 years ago, my first child was born. Now I have eight. Having such a big family and being a father for so long has taught me a great deal about life and in many ways, I wouldn’t be the person I am today without them.

There are five things in particular which have helped me professionally and made me a better leader. I’d like to share them with you.

Let people fail and learn from it.

Having children taught me an important lesson about letting people fail. You shouldn’t try catch people from falling, you should let them make mistakes and help them to learn from them.

The best example of this is teaching your kid to ride a bike. The process will inevitably see them falling off and hurting themselves at some point or another. You might feel inclined to stop it when you see it happening but, ultimately, the falling is crucial to learning.

If you were to try and teach a child to ride their bike without ever letting them fall, the process would take a hell of a long time. If you let them fall and learn from it, however, they’ll be a cyclist before you know it.

This is something which can be applied to biz life. It’s about viewing failure as a learning curve.

Prioritisation

As a parent, you have to prioritise almost every minute. My daily routine is all about prioritisation. In an ideal world, I’d have a solid workout in the morning and also have time to prepare my kids for school/home school. The reality is there’s just not enough time to do both of those things fully.

You have to ask yourself: how do you prioritise and balance out those two things?

So, you end up adapting. For example, I’ll do a set of weights and wake up one of my kids in my rest period. Then I’ll do another set, and during my rest period go to get breakfast ready.

As a leader, it’s taught me a lot about time-management and using my time as effectively as I can. It’s helped me become far more efficient when juggling different tasks and dealing with multiple moving parts.

Patience

I’m sure lots of parents would agree that parenting can be simultaneously life-affirming and frustrating. You have to get used to being asked the same question 100 times, sometimes in the same hour! Often, you’ll see the same mistakes being made again and again. I can’t count the amount of times I’ve had to deal with one of my kids knocking over a cup of something ???♂?

To be a good parent, you have to practice patience. I’d say the same applies as a leader. In my working life - and this also relates to the point about allowing people to make their own mistakes - I’ve witnessed some hiring decisions I’ve disagreed with. However, despite this, you have to trust the hiring manager in that instance and support their decision.

It’s about letting the process play out, having the patience to do so and helping your team figure out how to avoid it happening again.

Humility

This is a big one. Humility plays a big part in being a parent.

Anybody who has children will, at one point, have been that parent whose kid is kicking up a massive fuss in public, screaming, crying or generally just causing havoc. In my case, I cast my mind back a few years to a restaurant in Australia with my two-year-old twins.

All of the other diners had gone out for a night off and some probably had arranged babysitters too. We rocked up and the twins decided that throwing table knives at other guests was the theme of the evening ???♂?

It got to a point where we decided to leave before eating. We were dying on the inside!

Experiences like this, which are unavoidable as a parent, are extremely levelling. You can’t have an ego or take yourself too seriously. In any business, it’s also good to be humble and level-headed.

Selflessness

Leading with empathy is something which makes a great parent and leader

If I had a pound for every minute I’ve spent putting my kids’ clothes out, getting them ready for dance classes, preparing them for tests...you know the rest. You’re doing this to enable them to be their very best, and demonstrate selflessness in the sense that their needs come before yours at all costs.

In leadership positions, the same qualities are also critical. Winning as one, a key value at iTech is all about doing things for the greater good of the team. Giving people a “leg up” is a great way to do this. An inspiring conversation, role modelling, challenging someone to take a further career step, all these can help others to grow. It’s incredibly fulfilling to see the development of other people and see them get the recognition they deserve.

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I didn’t always plan to have as many kids as I do, but there’s no doubt it’s taken some rough edges off ???♂? and equipped me with plenty of things which have helped me become better both personally and professionally. I’d love to hear from any of you who feel you can relate in the comments below!

- Alan