Leadership Starts at Home

Leadership is a quality possessed by individuals and should be demonstrated at all places and most of the time. It’s not an attribute that switches on when we are at work place, a social gathering, professional activity outside our homes, and switches off once we are back home.

Let us observe our behavior at homes, we take our people for granted, and don’t pay heed to them. Appreciation for their effort is less, they have to ask for it most of the time. The family gossips and criticisms gets better of us and we indulge in it without thinking that it indicates at our biases, favoritism, lack of understanding, or willingness to understand the other members of the family. I believe the first place we should learn and demonstrate our leadership qualities is home. This article will focus on what I have learned about leadership at my home. As a parent, son or husband this approach of conscious effort to practice leadership has brought about a huge change.

One day I observed some markings on my wall calendar. These pencil markings were made on Saturday and Sunday throughout the month. Alphabet ‘C’ was written in a bold manner on these days of the calendar. I wondered and asked my wife about those markings, hoping an answer that she must have made note of some of her special events/activities. She told me it was not her, but my 7-year old son who has made note of his chess classes on those days. I realized one very important thing that day. Your children and other younger family members follow what you do. You unknowingly are setting examples for your younger ones. This made me realize that we should behave & conduct responsibly, since we are leading by example.

How many of us realize the importance of timely appreciation and feedback. When it comes to our workplace, business relationship, HR practices, we frequently practice this, as we want to motivate, encourage, and improve the ones associated with us. We do it sometimes voluntarily and sometimes as team leaders since its part of our KRA. I have frequently heard these statements that we don’t appreciate the efforts and hard work of women in house, either mother, sister, or wife. We miss out appreciating their efforts to cook excellent dishes, to keep the house in order, their contribution to our household finances, teaching kids. I learned that even our folks at home seek regular appreciation and feedback for their contribution. Once a timely appreciation, which I gave to my wife has since helped her improve upon many aspects of her personality. I too make it a point to receive the feedback. To be an effective leader, one must know when and how to give and receive feedback, and also to appreciate and motivate timely.

Listening is an art and should be practiced by leaders to show empathy and tolerance towards their teams. This is taught in most leadership workshops to corporate executives in order to help them understand the importance of brainstorming and find a solution to a problem democratically. The same executive can embrace this important quality of listening in his life, and not only effectively handle teams but also his parents, siblings, and others, who continuously seek someone who can hear them out and help resolve some of the other conflicts or problems in their lives. I ensure that I listen attentively to my people at home. Encourage them to speak and share, so that I can make them feel attended. I have learned never to avoid questions of my kid, how so ever non-sensible they sound, this encourages him to have an open conversation with me and his mother. He shares about the challenges he faces at school, hobby class, or while playing with his friends in the society. We also get to learn about the things troubling him or make him happy. This one habit has enabled and developed immense trust among the family members. Listening is that one leadership quality if used well can iron out differences and strengthen bonds among people.

Leadership is a phenomenon that should be demonstrated all the time, irrespective of the role, place, and situation one is in. To make it part of our behavior, we must strive to work hard upon it, for that we should remember, Leadership Starts at Home.