Leadership Is Just Like Parenting
Parenting is hard then leadership is even harder. You might only have few children at a same time but you can have dozen of employees work under you. How leadership and parenting come in common? Parenting is we contribute with everything but expect nothing in return while leadership is we paying salary to get effort in return, impossible that we expect nothing from employees isn’t it?
Well, let’s think in a way that actually in parenting, we also expecting children to growth as a better person in return. Doesn’t this just as same as leadership which we also want our employees to grow independent and strong in performing work task. For leaders that yet to become a parent, what is the common characteristic between parenting and leadership? For those who already a parent, apply these at your workplace and see the changes.
Lead by examples. Children will always mimic what and how parent behave at any occasion. For example, if parent doing house chores, children will also learn to do together. In workplace, employee just as same as children at home. How leader behave at workplace will greatly influence the performance of the employee because employee will think that “my boss is doing that either”.
Trust. Children always follow instruction from parent or family because the trust formed after a period of time. If you ask children to run towards you or stop at junction of the road, they will just follow without any hesitation. In workplace, I believe that all leaders are so desire for this type of employees. But have you form the deep trust feeling between you and your employee?
Freedom. Sometimes we have to give some freedom to our children in parenting. The more we control, the more rebellious children will be. This just happen so commonly in workplace, we call this situation as micromanagement. If a obedient children can feel the annoying of too much control, how can a smart adult not feel the same? Employees will even think that “is it my performance really that bad?”.
Fairness. I believe this a very headache issue for every parent out there when fairness come in place. Giving too much attention on little brother will make big sister feel envy. Human being all do have the emotion of jealousy, just as same at any situation, employees will also adopt that culture deep in their heart. Leaders might not aware this since employees will not show easily either therefore leaders must train to have a sharp eye.
Patience. Leaders and parents must have patience in common. The eager we looking for result, the more stress form at both sides. Leaders must patiently lead by examples to fabricate the workplace culture you desire. Patiently building trust between you and employees to narrow the relationship gap. Patiently listen to the request and ideas from everyone. Last but not
least, patiently observe the atmosphere with sharp eye.
Practice all this characteristic at home or workplace to become a better parent or leader. This will require a lot of training and learning from mistake. Also, require a huge amount of observation, to see if any changes of the environment of the workplace or even the personal growth of the employees. If great changes of personal growth of the employee occur, that will be your greatest achievement as a leader!