Leadership In Family Life And Parenting
Parenting is the most challenging leadership role out there. In fact, it is a leadership journey that never ends. But what does leadership have to do with parenting? There are so many myths about leadership where people believe that the term is just for Fortune 500 companies and high-flying entrepreneurs. But in reality, anyone can be a leader.
For this reason, there are many leadership concepts that can be applied in parenting. We can utilize these concepts to inspire our kids and lead our family life. I believe anyone can inspire others into action or growth since leadership can be learned, nurtured, and mastered.
In this episode, I will talk about leadership within family life and parenting, and how we can maximize the opportunities that we have with ourselves and our children.
Maximizing and mastering your leadership skills
As per Leadership 101 by John Z. Maxwell, real success comes from mastering skills in four basic areas of our life. These are relationships, self-directed learning, attitude, and leadership:
Relationships: It is the ability to cultivate trust in others by reflecting deeply on what's most important to you.
Self-directed learning: All successful leaders understand the concept of self-growth. They know how to prioritize by showing discipline in getting the job done.
Attitude: Our attitude towards life aligns with our vision, our character, and with our values.
Leadership: The traits of leadership actually relate to all the other areas of success and help multiply the impact of the first three. As per the author, success without leadership is possible but it's limited.
If we can maximize and master the skill of leadership, we can multiply the impact. We can multiply the impact at home and we can multiply the impact out in the world.
Getting leadership right in parenting
Getting the concept of leadership right can make or break your success in all aspects of life. But how can we master the skill of leadership in our family life and for our kids? A good place to start is understanding and living through the four phases of leadership.
First phase: Acknowledging that as parents, we don't have to know all the answers. Whether you want to grow as a parent or you want to improve your relationship with your kids, you can't just know everything from the start. During this phase, we are uncovering our blind spots as parents which takes curiosity, soul searching, and research. We're going to have to go through the process of searching for answers and acknowledging that when we don’t know, we don’t know.
Second phase: In this phase, it is getting to the point where you know what you don't know. As a parent, you might reach this phase many times. As per John Z. Maxwell, that's a good thing. This is because successful leaders are lifelong learners. So as parents we can ensure that we keep learning by reading, listening to audiobooks, getting coaching, or studying as a daily habit.
Third phase: Phase three is about trusting that as you grow, the effects will show. The key to this phase is being patient with ourselves. No one becomes a great leader overnight. Though it might feel like it's strange at first to invest in our growth as parents it is important to cultivate daily self-discipline. The payoff of this is believing in yourself which in turn will teach your kids how to believe in themselves.
Fourth phase: The final phase is when leadership starts to come naturally to you. This is when all phases seamlessly merge into one. It becomes normal for you to have a daily affirmation that you are a leader. As a leader of your family life, you will notice that your kids are watching you and will imitate what you do.
Take Away
Your leadership development is an ongoing process. Ask any effective leader in your life and you'll more than likely find out that they rely on self-development to maintain and grow their skills.
With this in mind, investing in our growth and accepting and trusting ourselves can also influence those around us. That is the true concept of being a leader. This can be easily parallel to us as parents. We help our kids learn to develop these same leadership skills every day. In other words, we can change the world so they can change the world.
In view of this, the most important thing to remember is that leadership is a process and over time it can transform every aspect of our life. In particular, it can transform our parent-child relationship, our marriage, our career, our relationship with our parents, and our relationship with ourselves.
Leadership works with a vision, an attitude of how we want to self-cultivate and establish strong relationships. This is why I have recently launched my big vision, The Parenting Lab. It is a supportive space where you and your fellow parents can invest in lifelong learning and master leadership skills for you and your entire family.
Join our monthly membership where you will learn new parenting strategies and tools, and connect every month with a community of parents. Here you can learn to implement what you’ll learn and then create a vision of success for you and your family life.
Empower yourself and your kids by signing up for The Parenting Lab.