What’s more important to you, your family or your career? “Define important? Aren’t they inextricably intertwined as one depends on the other?” Don’t go all analytical on me. I’m asking you do to a gut check. Which is more important? If your heartfelt response is “my career,” then you can probably stop reading. If, however, your answer is “family,” then please continue.
I was lying in bed the other night, feeling a bit sorry for myself. My wife had been frustrated about something significant. I interpreted this as frustration with me. The kids had picked up on the “frustrated” vibe and were behaving accordingly. As I lay there bemoaning the dissatisfactory evening unconsciously looking for someone other than myself to blame, I had one of those imaginary conversations I occasionally have in the privacy of my head. The conversation was with my manager and I was complaining to him about the events of that evening. In typical managerial fashion, he began to distill the situation into my key points of responsibility. “Did you properly set the tone for the team? Did you clearly define your goals, communicate your expectations and then lead by example? Did you provide honest, open feedback along with positive reinforcement?”
About this time, I told him he could stick it in his imaginary ear and I quit. But the idea, like a splinter in my mind, began to fester. I was frankly a little startled that I had never before consciously drawn parallels between my role at work and my role at home. The worst part was that even in my imagination it was my manager’s idea.
My professional role requires me to lead. Having accepted and embraced the role, I aspire to be an exceptional leader, reading books by famous leaders, subscribing to e-newsletters about great leaders, attending conferences where great leaders are speaking, putting sticky notes on my dual flat-screen monitors reminding me of great leadership principles, even searching out great leaders to mentor me.
Strangely, I had never really quantified my leadership at home quite like I have at work: don’t read many books on the subject, don’t really want to hear what other folk have to say about my “personal” life, sure as heck don’t need a mentor and don’t even own dual flat-screen monitors. But as I replayed the aforementioned imaginary conversation in my mind, I reckoned my imaginary boss just might have had a point. I could have drastically affected that evening’s outcome, could’ve definitely been a better example, should’ve listened more actively and demonstrated much greater empathy. I shudder to think how a 360-degree performance assessment might have gone the day after!
What’s more important to me, my family or my career? My answer is an emphatic “family,” coupled with the awareness that they are inextricably intertwined, but that one does not necessarily obviate the other. My role at home requires me to lead, having accepted and embraced the role, I aspire to be an exceptional father and husband, even if it means practicing while at work.
Principle Based Evaluation: Leadership begins in the home.
Mary Jackson
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... We all fight dualism, which wants us to separate the different spheres of our life and influence. It is helpful to me to think of my family as an organization. In our society, we place so much emphasis on building and investing in our career, and cultivating our leadership in the workplace, many times at the cost of our family. I Tim. 3 talks about how if we cannot manage our home, we are not qualified to lead elsewhere. Thank you for this great article. |
Erin Oostra
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Leadership starts at home... This is so true in every aspect of life, almost everything begins at home. ESPECIALLY leadership! We must "Work on leadership first. Our economic development success depends upon the quality of our leadership, its vision, and our ability to reach consensus and act as a team. And we must remember that all leadership begins at home; that is how we lead our own personal lives and careers. We must exhibit the highest level of integrity, honesty, and courage in today's world" (http://www.don-iannone.com/) "Leaders aren’t born, they’re developed. And a true leader is a leader in every area of life. Parents provide the earliest influence on children. By modeling leadership in their own lives, parents profoundly affect the kind of leaders their children become." (http://www.vision.org/visionme...px?id=3400). It is here we see that our decisions to lead in righteousness affect everyone around us. |
