Leader & Parent

Leader & Parent

If you hold both of these titles, I’m sure you already know that you can’t really separate your home & work lives. We try but, in so many ways, what is happening in one affects the other – for us, & our teams. We’ve been told for decades to act professionally & leave our stuff at the door, but if we are honest, that isn’t entirely possible. If your child is having trouble at school or the morning drop-off was difficult, it has an impact on the quality of our thinking & our emotional resilience. Its time to stop pretending it doesn’t.

The pandemic brought home & work lives closer than ever. Kids popping up on Zoom calls became expected & quite endearing to many. ?But as THAT parent, trying to juggle it all, it wasn’t actually as ‘sweet’ as it seemed. Trying desperately to do your job & not be a useless parent/teacher/referee at the same time was tough. Many of us still feel that! ??

With enforced homeworking & home-schooling behind us (gulp, really hoping I’m not tempting fate here!), we are somewhat back to acting as if our different roles exist in separation, but if you are a loving parent, you know that’s just not true. We put on our work clothes & do our thing, but the worries & concerns of parenthood aren’t something we ever really put down. We can, to a greater or lesser extent on different days, but true happiness, success & fulfilment in any aspect of life is fundamentally linked to satisfaction in all of parts of our life.

The same goes for our emotional life. What is felt can be learned from, in all parts of life.?Feelings that are hastily locked in a box continue to live there, growing in strength - a powerful disowned energy that will burst out at the most inappropriate times. You know, when you overreact to something your child does & you know, the reaction wasn’t really because of them, its because something went wrong at work that day or something that happened to you in the past. Then the guilt comes along! ?

Facing up to what you feel is a major step towards a healthy & successful life, career & family. We need to do the work on ourselves because, as much as we hate to admit it, our teams & our kids often begin to emulate the worst parts of us.

With our kids:

• If you have a strong inner critic, that will be their inner dialogue - telling them they aren’t good enough at every turn no matter what they hear from you or others.

• If you are judgmental, they will be too – internally (through the voice of the critic) & externally into the world. ?

• Unable to face your fears & vulnerability, they will stuff all those things in a box too. And, it will leap out when least expected in the form of a melt down or aggression towards others. ?

You create what you are inside, not what you hope they’ve picked up on when you were doing your best.

And, it’s not so different with our teams.

Whatever your company culture or values say, it’s your unconscious behaviour day in & day out that shapes your team culture & behaviours.

So, I ask you to take a look at what you feel & say to yourself. The ways you behave when you wish you hadn't?

Do you want that to be your child’s experience?

Do you want that to become your team culture?

Working on yourself will ALWAYS have a positive impact on your family & your team. So, why wouldn’t you want to be the best version of yourself for them?

If this resonates & you are ready to do the work, drop me a message or scan the QR code to book a no obligation call.?