It is often said that moms make great leaders, probably the best leaders. The invaluable, often innate skills that come from motherhood, from intuition, to organization and effective team management, are also described as main leadership qualities; qualities which should logically translate well from the home to the office and vice-versa. Yet, I remember asking myself, in the middle of a rather heated exchange with my teenagers on a random Tuesday while trying to process the next batch of laundry and remembering the appointments of the day, how much of this holds true in my own experience. If motherhood makes for great leaders, does effective leadership translate into effective motherhood and vice-versa, crossing from the office to the home?
I grew up with a single mother who worked in and outside of the home. In stark contrast to the images of leadership I was exposed to through both my academic and my professional journey, where leadership was mostly male, my first image of leadership was female. It is not until years later as a working mother myself, that I began grappling with the concept of leadership and what it means for working women and moms at the intersection of work and home…
Despite the common traditional assumption that men are the leaders of the home, much of the home’s “silent” leadership is actually carried by women, whether they work exclusively in the home, or both in and outside of the home. As a matter of fact, the “silent” but oh so meaningful contributions of women make up $7.6 trillion of the Unites States’ annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Unpaid labor is defined by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) as “non-compensated time spent completing domestic tasks such as caring for children, the elderly, or other household or non-household members, cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, and shopping for household goods, among others.”
Yet, what is not often talked about is what happens at the intersection of leadership at work and home for working mothers. How do we, as working moms, carry this leadership in our homes? How do we defy traditional norms that do not recognize us as leaders, in or outside the home? And how do we transition from leadership at work to leadership at home?
Let me preface by saying I strongly believe leadership, especially for women, is an innate skill, an ability that ought to be developed and nurtured internally first, rather than acquired and developed from the outside. This is why so many leadership trainings for women often fail to produce authentic and sustainable results. Instead of targeting the development of innate leadership qualities that already exist in women, they tend to focus on imprinting externally developed, and traditional patriarchal ideas of leadership. What these programs unsuccessfully attempt to do then, is to erroneously fix the outside, forgetting about the importance of authentically working from the inside first. Now imagine these same patriarchal models of leadership being brought back in the home, perpetuating a flagrant lack of alignment and authenticity in the process of raising children and running households…
As a working mom and career woman, I tried bringing back home this patriarchal model of leadership, based on so-called effective ways of leading ranging from assertiveness to even aggressiveness at times. And…need I say it did not work, and especially not with children, never mind rebellious teenagers…Children, as well as teenagers, can sense lack of authenticity from a mile away. While I observed our children effectively responding to my husband’s unique and very personal leadership style, I could plainly see they were not responding as well to my own professionally imported style of leading…This prompted me to continue exploring what leadership means for women at the intersection of work and home. This exploration has led me to these three principles that have helped me ease the confusion between traditional leadership, mostly applied at work, and leadership at home, and tie both into an approach to leadership for working moms:
- Develop one uniform leadership identity across work and home:
What kind of leader am I? How do I lead, not just in the workplace, but everywhere where I can have an impact? And how can I ensure my leadership remains authentic while still acting for the greater good?
I believe leadership is intrinsically tied to the very core of our beings. Who you are when no one is looking is who you are as a leader. I struggled with this for a long time, especially as a woman building a career in mostly male-dominated environments. I’m a quiet leader, so my style of leadership is not exactly aligned with the most mainstream and popular ideas of leadership either.
Reconciling my various identities as a Black woman, a professional and an introvert into one uniform leadership identity has been (and still is) a journey. One that is a precious opportunity to know myself better and evolve with the various seasons of my life; but also one that allows me to dig deeper into what my authentic style of leadership is.
- No leadership battles! Create a multi-leadership environment
Am I the leader or is my husband the leader? If he is the leader, how can I lead? Should I even be thinking of leading?
As a woman raised in a single-parent, female-led home, in a traditionally patriarchal West African society in the Catholic faith, these questions were bound to cross my mind. Men are supposed to be the leaders in the home. Then how do we introduce the concept of leading as women? Yet, if we do not contribute to the leadership of our homes, then what are we doing? And if we’re learning to lead outside the home, do we just leave all that at the door when we get home?
I believe we are all leaders in our own capacity and in various roles. While we cannot all lead in the same areas at the same time, we can take various leadership roles at different times. What this means may vary from one marriage or family to another. But the fact remains that leadership can be shared, with various levels of responsibility and accountability being put in place between partners but also between partners and children.
- Be flexible in your approach to leadership
As a working woman and mom, I know seasons of life and work rapidly change. What worked yesterday may not work today, and vice-versa. Learning to be flexible has been a key in my own growth and development as a leader in my own life and work. Being willing to gauge and re-evaluate my own sense of leadership, taking into account feedback from others, and forgiving myself in the process, has allowed me to continue to be true to myself.
Flexibility in how we approach and apply leadership at home and at work will allow you to adjust as you pursue your own leadership journey. It will also allow you to navigate the various, and inevitable, phases of life and work ahead, while authentically leading as yourself, from your very core.
For working women and moms, reconciling how to lead at home and how to lead at work, can create a world of confusion. By developing one uniform approach to leadership, sharing leadership at home, and allowing flexibility in the process, the journey can be made much easier, and most importantly, much more authentic and purposeful…
How do you reconcile leading at home and leading at work?
The Corporate Sis
