How becoming a parent helped me become a better people's leader

Fatherhood and becoming a manager happened to me simultaneously in 2006. While I had been a 'designated manager' (School Captain, College Academic Team Lead, etc.) during my school and higher education days, but those were the formative years, when I never thought much about people leadership. But becoming a father helped me subconsciously imbibe certain traits and start taking some proactive behavioural measures that helped me become a decent people's leader.

While there and several interrelated traits that I can think of, here are a few traits worth mentioning-

• Perseverance : The dictionary meaning of the word perseverance is 'persistence in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success'. Well, as a first time manager (and a father), one has to be persistent and patient with your team (and your toddler). Just like a toddler, your team, especially if they a bunch of freshers; can be restless, sentimental, judgemental and at times might even challenge everything that you think or do. They will not see things from your perspective. But with persistency of depicting a certain result-enabling behaviour (example: doing a sales call in a certain way), you will make them do things in a certain way.
• Patience and Anger Management: It is very easy to lose ones cool, both with your children as well as with your team. Most of the people belonging to my generation (born in 70s) have experienced strict fathers as well as authoritarian managers. Knowing the drawbacks of it, I promised to myself that I shall avoid losing my temper and with patience, try and address issues, no matter, trivial or otherwise. From answering some vague questions to understanding their perspective, calls for a lot of patience. I can comfortably state that over last 12 years, I have managed to gain trust as well as confidence of my team (and my kids), who can openly approach me or challenge me without any fear of backlash.
• Active listening: Sometimes, just actively listening to your kids (and team members) solves most of the problems. Venting out their concerns is all they need and leaves them satisfied. Important tip- Keeping away my cell phone during important conversations helped me build better bond, both at work as well as at home.
• Right Body Language: Here are a few secrets that I would like to share

It is scientifically proven that if you kneel down to make an eye contact with your toddlers, they connect with you better.

1. Manage your expressions: Just like your young kids, your team reads you all the time. If you will come across joyful, calm and composed, the productivity will see a multiplier effect. There were times when I went through hell-of-a-time with my bosses, customers or other unrelated people. But not expressing my anguish, only helped me manage those tough situations better. Had I panicked before my team or carried the proverbial baggage of anger to work, I would have only made the situation worst. Equally important is to sometimes depict urgency, assertiveness, dissatisfaction (or at times anger), just to ensure that your team (and children) doesn't succumb to comfort zone, whereas, the situation around is demanding.
2. Getting down to their level, literally: It is scientifically proven that if you kneel down to make an eye contact with your toddlers, they connect with you better. Similarly, I often try and ensure that my eye contact is always there with my team.

• Walk-the-talk - Lead by example: Expecting your team to come to work on time, be truthful, accept and own mistakes or in general, depict a specific behaviour can best be demonstrated by you through your behaviour. Similarly, there is no point in expecting your children "not to litter", "finish their meals" or "do something meaningful", when you can not demonstrate similar behaviour in your day-to-day conduct with them or in their presence.
• Multi-tasking: Who knows multi-tasking better than a parent. It is an art, which I perfected over time. But prioritising important over urgent and vice-versa is something, I completely owe to my children, who are often ready with a laundry list of to-dos, as the weekend approaches. At the same time your spouse (a.k.a your boss) too expects you to do something during the same period. Need I say more.
• Managing a discernible: Being in service industry, one has to deal with discerning customers all the time. I am extremely thankful to both my children for preparing me to manage discernible customers seamlessly ;).
• Art of Story-Telling: Story-telling to make them eat or to make them go to bed, is a powerful trait that helped me do better presentations. Being creative-on-the-go and able to think-on-my-feet in pressing situations is something that I will attribute to constant demand for story-telling from my children.
• Managing intra-team conflicts: How to be fair to both the sides, how to keep personal bias away in managing conflicts, facing and coming clean from accusations (and logically refuting and proving them wrong) can at best be learnt by being parent of more than one child. At the same time, communicating openly and clearly, why I have decided in favour of one sibling over another (or team member) helped me build long-term trust. Stimulating healthy competition amongst team members is another side of the same coin, which I learnt being father of two kids.
• 'Enable' before 'Help': "Give it to me, I will do it" or "Let me solve this for you" is synonymous to "Let me take care of this proposal" or "Let me talk to the client". Such a 'help' will only result into dependencies and suboptimal team performance. Such teams and kids will feel good about you, but in the long-run, they will only blame you for not enabling them when you will not be around. It's like letting them learn how to ride a bicycle without supporters!
• Helping overcome fear of failure: Somewhat related to above point, giving comfort by saying "Go for it...Don't worry, I am there with you" goes a long way in creating confident kids as well as team members. Disclaimer: Do set correct expectations. Communicating that somethings you will never back up for, no matter what, is equally important. (Example: Expecting being backed up against a negative feedback in a PTA for going to school without doing the homework (nonchalantly) is as good as a subordinate not worrying about a backlash for going to a client meeting without preparations)
• 'Always available' versus 'Being available, when situation demands': It is situational, but at times, one has to strike a fine balance between being always available to team (and kids) and being available, when situation demands. You sitting next to your children while preparing for exams is akin to being with your team during (difficult) client reviews. Being always available may be highly comforting but it only build dependencies and results into lack of stewardship and ownership. I must admit, I learnt it quite late in my career as well as in my parenthood. Being always available to my team and to my older child created issues both for them as well as for me. Clearly, my younger one is far more independent than my elder one because I was 'always available' to the latter.

Parenthood and people leadership is an interwoven journey for those, who can learn and relate situations from the two worlds and apply them interchangeably.

I would conclude by saying that both the journeys were difficult but brought me immense joy and satisfaction. You don't have to be a parent to become a better manager. Just share this article, if you think it is useful ;)

End Note: This is only the part I of this article. I shall publish part II in next few years after I experience how to manage my teenage kids and what it takes to manage senior team mates in the years to come.