Ten Lessons From My Recent "Leadership" Course

“Enjoy your vacation”

That's what a few people said to me when I announced my pregnancy.

It's been around ten weeks since I started my parental leave after giving birth to my second child.?

When I announced my pregnancy, I got very interesting reactions from those around me. As an aspirational leader who loves every inch of what she does as a career, I was not just amazed but honestly quite amused at the “surprised” reactions.

“Enjoy your vacation.”

“This is not a vacation.”?

“This is not a vacation.”

What is it then?

“It's a leadership course often branded as Maternity Leave or Parental Break”?

Here are the top ten things that doing this new leadership course has taught me (some for the second time):?

1. Mind Mapping and Baby Napping:

In my work, my mind is always busy creating mind maps and strategic linkage diagrams to make the work we do efficient. I am often told I am a weaver, a queen of managing chaos. How different is it from managing nap times, poopy diapers, and “oh, let's leave that for a good day” mess? And amongst all this, finding time for “self-love.”

2. Creative Edits and a Lot of Gibberish:

I love good storytelling, and at work, I get to experiment a lot, reading, editing, and even making mistakes around how we best share the story. That is not much far from making sense of a lot of baby talk, cooing, and cashing and understanding toddler tantrums in gibberish!

3. Dream Team and a Bowl of Chaos:

In my work life, I was blessed to create a dream team around me. And it took me forever, and I know not every leader is blessed with it. But in motherhood, let's just say my team started with an attention-seeking 4-year old toddler and a newborn with an amazing knack for throwing a fit and crying their lungs out when they don't get MILK. Both of them make a brilliant team of mess creators.

4. Fire Fighting and “The Floor Is Lava”:

Have you ever tried solving a mess while being humble, genuine, honest, and not letting anger take over you? I call it all another level of flexibility as a leader when your true feminist and human self combines to solve problems together with your community. Parental leave teaches you how to pace all that with your newly built team around you 24X7 while your body recovers through stitches, pains, and hormonal offload. In neither of the spaces do you manage to solve the problems every time. But, you do get marks for the effort.

5. Who Has the Time and Multitask Queens:

Have you ever wondered how women end up doing more in less time, with efficiency and ease? Leaders are expected to be time management specialists, but moms end up becoming gurus of it. I remember a colleague once asked me how I am able to focus with a 2-year-old around me. The reality is that while there is time for work and time for the baby, very often when they overlap, my mind creates boxes of doing both with ease and efficiency, sometimes like a wizard at lightning fast speed.

6. ABCs Can Also Mean Adaptability, Bravery, and Challenges:

Leaders are nothing if not carrying the flex to switch on and off between conversations, with ease and still making sense. From financial planning at work and at home to cooing lullabies at night- a good leader can do it all with ease. It is all replicable. I wrote a detailed handover post elaborate conversations and extensive planning while preparing my team and office for my leave period with a very detailed work plan and tracker sheet at the same time when I was writing? my birth plan. Trust me when I say, it's all replicable.

7. Cheerleader Has the Word “Leader” in It:

The other day my four-year-old walked in telling me a story about how a boy pushed her in school and she stood up for herself and did not tolerate it. I cheered for her with a beaming face. The same face that comes in when a team member presents a tool at a global conference, or another team member argues around feminist practices in a meeting, or when another team member does something that might sound normal but is an act of bravery for them. When my newborn smiled and turned at me when I called her, I had the same face as I knew it was a milestone.

8. It Is All About the People:

Negotiation is such a flex. Have you ever made a toddler wear a pair of pants when they are not in the mood? What about making a newborn wear a diaper while they kick and scream? What about doing the same with an idea or process at work with a set of people who can't see the merit of it still? Negotiating deals is everyday for a leader.

9. Value-Based Leadership Is FEMININE:

I say feminine and not a trait only women have (Fun Fact: masculine and feminine traits exist in all humans irrespective of gender). This pregnancy and parental leave period has brushed my skills around adaptability, patience, safe-space, intergenerational, intersectionality, and accountability to another level. Not to remind, finding time to be gentle and kind to my own self while being all things honest and humane to everyone around me.

10. I Made a Boo-Boo, and I Am OK Saying It Out Loud:

Leadership I am reminded daily is lonely and so many new mothers tell me how lonely motherhood can be despite having so many floating, talking heads around us. A lot is expected, and yet, as humans, we feel lost, alone, and always under a lens. Authentic leaders own up to the mess they make and learn and move from those. Parenting a newborn teaches you that at so many levels. I once put a used diaper in the almirah and threw my washcloth in the diaper bin. I owned it and laughed so hard.

Despite the above, some leaders are given standing ovations for their performance and commitment to making the world better, and other leaders who choose motherhood along with their other work life (double leadership stints) are treated as third-grade individuals. Leaders are given awards, rewards and recognition, and sadly, when leaders choose motherhood and take career breaks, they are seen as absolutely useless for the workforce?

Leaders are given paid executive education programs and applauded for the breaks they take to refine their leadership skills and learn with communities. However, leaders who do the same through pregnancy and motherhood are questioned about their career commitments.

I go back.

“This is not a vacation. I am on parental leave, taking an executive leadership course.”

And for those who wonder if I am coming back to office paid-work after this or not- "I am coming back more prepared, determined and with more skills in my bag of tools."