I have spoken many times about the correlation between leading in business and leading in your family. We recently experienced our eldest daughter using her “wings” to fly off to New York to live and work for a year, aged 21.
As parents (existing leaders) you reflect on all you have done to prepare them for this journey – you feel proud, apprehensive, hopeful and inspired all at the same time. You think about the development journey – you have been preparing them for this since they were born…….and you wanted them to have the confidence to be so independent as to do it themselves. You also wanted them to know that you trusted them to make it work – and there was no such thing as failure – failure was not to give it a go in the first place. And you also know that things are going to happen along the way that may not always be seen as “success” and yet they will learn enormously from the experience.
Now transpose this thinking to the business world – no difference! Young people join the business and what if we were to choose to inspire them to believe in what they can become and that we are there to support and encourage them rather than judge them. What if we were to build trust in their capability, their passion and their dreams – instead of judging them the way so many existing leaders do?
I see too many emerging leaders being crushed, squashed and labelled rather than inspired. Would existing leaders behave differently and afford different treatment to these existing leaders if they were related? I think they would – in fact I know they would – as I experienced this shift with one of my existing leaders as an aspiring partner in an accounting firm; when his daughter entered the job market and he appreciated how hard it was to be a female with career aspirations in the early 1990s.
So I challenge all existing leaders to treat emerging leaders as you would treat your child who was aspiring to greatness and fulfilment of their dreams. If you did this what would you change?
