Taking Home to Work with Me: How My Kids Taught Me to Lead

While most people know I returned to the corporate world last year, I began working from my home office even before the pandemic when I started my own consulting business. This is where I unexpectedly encountered the most demanding, inflexible, and hardest-to-please supervisors of my career — my children. And interestingly, I have become a better leader because of the perspective I gained as a parent working so close to my kids. Some of the key things I learned were about balance, empathy, and getting over The Guilt (yes, with a capital G).

DON’T FEEL GUILTY ABOUT LOVING YOUR WORK

I love what I do. I needed to admit to myself that I receive a certain amount of personal fulfillment from work; it’s the reason I went back to a full-time corporate job. I get energy from working with colleagues to solve a problem, brainstorm an idea, or even review a plan. The energy I get from work has been critical to my mental health during this pandemic. Happy mom, happy kids. By being fulfilled at work, I am a role model for my children — teaching them about responsibility, a work ethic, and how great it is when you find your calling.

DON’T FEEL GUILTY ABOUT LEAVING WORK AT THE OFFICE

It goes both ways. I love what I do. And, I do, of course, love my family. So, when I virtually leave the office, I leave the troubles of the day there. If I have had a bad workday, I really only make it worse by letting it encroach on my family time.

Not to mention the fact that the “at-home supervisors” have little empathy for my difficult day at work. They can smell stress!

This is something I’ve had to learn over time — there have been times when I mentally allowed work to violate my personal time. Violate may seem like a harsh word, but it best describes the unhealthy dynamic that I had created. Because my ability to contribute and be successful at work is such a significant part of who I am, it requires a deliberate effort on my part to draw clear lines.

One thing I’ve done to draw that line and protect my family time is not adding my work email to my personal phone. Either I’m in front of the computer doing work or I’m not. For me, the lines must be that stark, lest I fall into the trap of allowing work to steal my personal time with family.

DO RESPECT YOUR FELLOW PARENTS

I carry this through to the way I lead. I am not the only one with a family and a life outside the office, so I am respectful of that in others. Pre-kids, I would become laser-focused on the task before us and tend to forget about outside life. Now, my team knows that they can and should be comfortable sharing when they have personal commitments that make working past 5:00 difficult. I am comfortable sharing that several team members who knew me pre-kids mentioned, “We are glad you had kids…it’s easier for us now that you understand.”

Parenthood helped me as a leader to create an environment where team members were no longer uncomfortable sharing when they had personal time conflicts.

It is difficult — in fact, impossible — to believe that one can get the best out of their team without respecting and understanding what the other half of their life looks like.

I think the pandemic has opened a door, a Zoom door, into our colleagues’ lives and has reminded all of us that we are human beings, mothers, fathers, caretakers, and even pet parents.

DO BE FLEXIBLE

As a manager, I cannot always give team members a raise or promotion, but I can provide flexibility. It doesn’t require a budget, a cost-benefit analysis proposal, or a governance sign-off. In the current COVID-19 atmosphere defined by unpredictability, creating an atmosphere where my team can have the right work-life balance may be the most important resource I can offer as a leader.

With more work flexibility necessitated by the pandemic, I have not witnessed a decrease in productivity; quite the opposite, in fact. One of the salient lessons from this pandemic may be physical presence is not as essential as once believed to achieve optimum productivity. Aren’t results and the way you achieve those results the most important outcomes?

While I wish I could say it was smooth sailing on the personal front, it was not, but I know I’m not alone. These invaluable lessons learned have greatly affected my leadership style, hopefully for the better, and are the result of those hard-driving taskmasters — otherwise known as my adorable children.