Learn Team Leadership Skills From Parenting

I have had more than one client refer to their business team as a “family.” It’s true, too, and in more ways than one. As a parent of four kids, I can tell you that business coworkers and family members behave similarly in many essential ways, such as tattling on each other; fighting over toys; getting into various spats that flare, cool to embers, and then flare again; griping over unfair workloads; leaving jobs half-done; and causing parents untold worry and consternation.

Business teams can also mirror families in positive ways. They are capable of pulling together against a common threat, sharing laughter and camaraderie, learning to show grace for personality differences, and causing parents to feel deeply rewarded as they mature, grow, and learn to work together.

Parents are constantly talking and strategizing about their kids. Business leaders do the same about their staff. Parenting and team leadership are two of the toughest things you will ever try, and for many of the same reasons. Like parenting, leadership isn’t for everyone; but if it’s the game you’ve chosen, these eight lessons apply directly from one to the other.

The Eight Leadership Lessons

1. Rules without a (proper) relationship leads to rebellion.

2. There is a big difference between power and authority.

3. Have a few standards, and stick to them.

4. Be consistent.

5. Ultra-strict and ultra-lenient parents don’t produce the best results.

6. Praise in writing; rebuke verbally.

7. Start with people where they are, not where you want them to be.

8. Set the right tone, and everything will take care of itself.

1. Rules Without a (Proper) Relationship Leads to Rebellion

This adage is true, provided the word proper is inserted. Any wise parent knows that laying down the law to children outside of a context of a trusting relationship doesn’t work; it only makes children bitter and rebellious.

These same parents know that their goal is to have strong relationships with their children based on mutual respect and boundaries, not to try to build peer-to-peer relationships. You don’t confide in your child about your grown-up problems. You both have age-appropriate friendships. Your child doesn’t look to you as her prime source of friendship, nor do you look to her for that.

On that basis, you can enjoy a satisfying parent/child relationship. Once she’s grown up, she will have earned the right to have a relationship of equality with you, but that doesn’t exist when she’s a child. Your child has lots of friends, but only one set of parents.

The same is true with the employee-employer relationship. Your employee has lots of coworkers, but only one boss. You actually get rebellion when you delve too deeply into an employee’s personal life and then try to introduce rules. Your job is to be first among equals, and to find your close friendships elsewhere. The day may come when your employee (like your growing child) moves through the ranks and becomes your equal in role, and then, of course, the nature of your relationship will change, too. The essential question to ask yourself is “Am I too close to this person to be able to call out their bad behavior?” If the thought of it makes you squirm, you may be getting too close.

2. There Is a Big Difference Between Power and Authority

Many times we have had to use power when parenting our kids. “No, I’m sorry, there’s no more screen time today” or “No, sorry, you can’t go to that person’s house for a sleepover.” They want it, we don’t want them to have it, and we exercise our parental power to force them to do what we want. Many employers rely on only this leadership tool alone. It’s a useful tool, without a doubt, but power only represents half the story of how effective leaders operate.

By the time I was in my early 30s, I had worked for two bosses who loomed large in my mind. One was strong, effective, and very skilled in the use of authority; the other was weak and ineffective, and relied mainly on power to get things done. Both taught me unforgettable lessons about leadership.

Mark was the lead pastor at a fast-growing church. He was the genuine article. He cared passionately about our organization and was extremely serious about the mission. But he didn’t take himself very seriously at all. He was quick to laugh at himself and hear dissenting opinions. His strategy was to lay out goals for employees, and then have coaching sessions to help them figure out how they would achieve those objectives.

At times Mark used power, saying “No, because I’m the boss and I say so.” But those times were rare. Mostly people wanted to follow Mark because they respected his values, work ethic, sincerity, and obvious care for each employee. As a result, he developed many leaders. And even though I haven’t worked for him in more than 20 years, Mark still has authority in my life; I maintain our relationship and continue to seek his advice.

By contrast, Joe once told me about his two greatest motivational tools: fear and accountability. His strategy involved clearly outlining what he expected people to do (a good thing), and then publicly warning them about the consequences of failure. He called people out in meetings and dressed them down in the most caustic way. He fired people very publicly, making his booming voice reverberate through the building so that everyone knew he was serious about his standards.

People scurried like terrified hamsters to do whatever Joe told them to do. They instantly folded to his demands, promptly got on board with his plans, and apologized profusely when they displeased him. This strategy worked—that is, until he left the room. That’s when vitriol poured out over poor, deluded Joe. He thought he was the Man, but in reality he was both despised and disrespected.

A culture of power produces artificial harmony. It’s “pretend,” and everyone knows it but the dictator. Because people are afraid to disagree publicly, they do so secretly. In our case, routine shipments to customers went missing. Theft (shrink) was out of control. Gossip between employees and long-time customers eroded Joe’s power. Employees conspired to confound Joe’s plans.

Then, one day, Joe wasn’t there anymore. The owner fired him. There was no going-away party, and I never heard about him again. That’s how raw power tends to work. It can make things happen quickly, but weakens relationships, and doesn’t build loyalty or positive culture, or affect permanent change in people. The influence of power dies the day you are no longer in a position to force people to carry out your will.

Here are the essential differences between power and authority:

Power	Authority
Weakens relationships	Strengthens relationships
Flows from position or title	Flows from character
Engenders obedience	Engenders loyalty and respect
Makes employees compliant	Develops employees into self-managed, responsible contributors
Builds a dog-eat-dog work environment	Builds a cooperative, synergistic work environment
Works as long as you are in a position to force people to do what you want them to do	Lasts a lifetime

Power helps build the culture you want when that power is seasoned with authority. A wise leader knows that authority flows from respect.

3. Have a Few Standards, and Stick to Them

In our house, just like in yours, we couldn’t possibly have standards for everything. But there are a few things that are non-negotiable. When those really important standards are violated, we as parents take action. If we don’t, our family culture will start to erode and eventually spin out of control. Some of our standards are:

• Display respect—for each other, strangers, and our property.

• Show a work ethic. If you’re a slacker, things will go ill for you at our place.

• Have faith. A life rooted in respect for God and His character is foundational in our home.

Your standards may be different than ours. They may be explicitly stated or implicit understood. There will always be situations the standards don’t directly cover, but when we consistently enforce them, the family knows what’s expected and knows what boundaries not to violate.

In a company, these rules are called many things: core values, guiding principles, pillars of success, rules of engagement, or right attitudes, for example. It doesn’t matter what you call them, it matters that you communicate them and make them live in your organization.

4. Be Consistent

Healthy families have boundaries that clearly establish what is and what isn’t acceptable, and these boundaries need to be consistently enforced. When one member of the family is punished for a right attitudes violation but another gets away with doing the same, it hurts everyone, including the one who violates with impunity.

In a business context, when some people are allowed to violate rules with impunity, they—and others around them—get bolder. Soon the stated right attitudes become meaningless. Consistency is key.

5. Ultra-Strict and Ultra-Lenient Parents Don’t Produce the Best Results

I worked as a pastor to teenagers and their parents early in my career, and I had the opportunity to observe how parenting styles affected children over time. Though I saw baffling situations, in which the best kids came from the seemingly worst homes and in which the very best homes produced some interesting pieces of work, two patterns were fairly consistent: authoritarian parents and indulgent parents.

AUTHORITARIAN PARENTS

In this family, the children lived in a feudal castle with a king and queen who called the shots and made life very difficult for their poor subjects. Usually it was the fathers who ruled with an iron fist.

The main desired outcome of the authoritarian family was obedience and respect. Kids’ lives were laid out for them. These homes were characterized by raised voices and displays of anger. This combination of micro-management and harsh treatment tended to embitter the children, and they often grew into rebellious teenagers who engaged in lots of unhealthy behaviors.

In some cases, the kids would come to their senses somewhere in their 20s, and the families would reunite. In others, the rebellious teenagers grew into rebellious adults and never really recovered. Ironically, while these parents achieved obedience for a time, they never really earned the respect they sought.

INDULGENT PARENTS

In this family, any kind of behavior was okay, just as long as the parents felt liked by their kids and were viewed as “cool.” Teenagers in these families might be granted parental approval to engage in dangerous and/or illegal activities, like experimenting with sex, drugs, and alcohol.

Teenagers could decide for themselves what they wanted to watch, read, eat, and wear. They could associate with whomever they wanted, at any time. They could attend any party they chose, and they could address their parents in an insolent way if they felt like it.

These children often spun out of control as they came into their teen years, because even teens want boundaries. These kids tended to engage in all manner of unhealthy behaviors, and sometimes emerged with significant, life-long consequences as a result, including addictions, failed relationships, and surprise children of their own. (By the way, these parents weren’t viewed by their offspring as cool, nor were they liked much. More likely, the kids were disgusted by their parents’ weaknesses, and were only too glad to walk on them like doormats.)

Your business is no different. Strict, authoritarian leadership produces rebellion and unhealthy behaviors without winning respect. Lenient, indulgent leadership just produces chaos.

6. Praise in Writing; Rebuke Verbally

If you have something negative to say to your child, never write it down. When he has it in writing, he can keep it for the rest of his life and go over it again and again. He can revisit his grievances and hurts, and remind himself why the remarks were unwarranted or unfair.

When you praise, do it in writing. Written praise is very powerful, because your child and can go back to it again and again and be reminded of good qualities and the support and love that he has around him.

The same is true in business.

7. Start With People Where They Are, Not Where You Want Them to Be

My wonderful Norwegian dad was great at so many things, but one thing he wasn’t great at was being a mentor or trainer. He didn’t have the patience for it, and grossly overestimated the inborn skill set that his children brought to basic mechanical jobs. His on-the-job carpentry training looked something like this:

Dad: “Trevor, get me that!”

Trevor: “What, this?”

Dad: (with scorn) “No, not THAT, the other thing!”

Trevor: (tentatively holding up a tool) “You mean this thing?”

Dad: (furiously jabbing at the air while pointing) “NOO! THE! THING! OVER! THERE!”

Trevor: (cringing while holding up another tool) “You mean this thing?”

Dad: (now actually staggered by my stupidity) “Here, get out of the way.... I’ll find it myself!”

When someone is new to a complex job, expect them to take a full year to really catch on. If they’re at 60 percent within six months, they’re probably doing okay. Take a breath and remember all the hours you had to devote to get where you’re at today. Exercise some patience, and become a mentor to someone where they are.

8. Set the Right Tone, and Everything Else Will Take Care of Itself

When you have a young child, you need to establish the right tone. This may require some discipline in the beginning, but once you’ve built the proper boundaried relationship, established your rules, and shown consistency in enforcing them and making them “live” in your family, the rest is easy. You don’t have to punish your child very often, because she feels secure in her home. She knows what the rules are and how she should behave.

This works precisely the same way in your company.

I have a client who leads a manufacturing business. He and his team have set a tone in which staff live and die by the company values. One of those values is to do whatever it takes to get the job done. The tone at the company is very positive, and overall staff share a can-do attitude. The results are stellar.

One day my friend was short-staffed and a related company sent over two workers to help. They were used to a very different culture that permitted a lethargic work ethic and mediocre results. The first guy didn’t last until morning coffee break; the second quit after a couple of days, because it was too hard.

When these fill-in workers went back to their own company, they told their coworkers about their terrible experience and that they would never go back. When the news got back to my client, he exclaimed, “I’m so happy—because we’ve built a company that only stars want to work for!”

A healthy tone attracts stars and repels non-stars.

People Action Steps

• Evaluate your team relationships. Have you become so friendly with any staff members that you’ve lost the power to call out bad behavior? If so, re-adjust.

• Ask yourself if any of your former employees still seek out your advice. If not, work harder at gaining respect through authority, not power alone.

• Write short, sincere notes of praise to those who deserve it. You will put gas in their tank for months to come.

• List all the skills you’ve had to master to get to where you are today. Remember that it took time, and start to teach someone those skills, one by one.

In Summary

1. Rules without a (proper) relationship leads to rebellion. Your employees have lots of pals but only one boss; don’t fail them by confusing them over which one you are.

2. There is a big difference between power and authority. Power forces compliance and weakens relationships, whereas authority engenders loyalty and strengthens relationships.

3. Set a few standards and stick to them. Define your right attitudes and enforce them with everyone.

4. Be consistent. Don’t play favorites and allow some people to violate your rules.

5. Ultra-strict and ultra-lenient parents don’t produce the best results. The ultra-strict employers produce rebellion, and the ultra-lenient employers produce chaos. Stay in the middle for best results.

6. Praise in writing; rebuke verbally. If you rebuke in writing, an employee can review it and nurse the hurt for years to come. If you praise in writing, she can review it for years and grow in confidence and self-awareness.

7. Start with people where they are, not where you want them to be. Don’t expect your new hires to understand the business like you do. Remember everything you’ve had to learn to get to where you are today. Instead, meet them where they are, and begin the mentoring process.

8. Set the right tone, and everything else will take care of itself. Once your employees understand your expectations, very little discipline will be required.