Whether we recognize it or not it takes good leadership skills to be a good parent! Primarily the leadership skill that stands out to me the most is “Say what you mean and mean what you say!"
Not applying this basic leadership skill will sink your ship quickly! When I say quickly I mean all the way to the bottom of the deepest part of the sea!
The key is to think before you speak especially when it comes to initiating rules and discipline. If your child violates a rule you have set then you better do what you say you're going to do! That is probably the hardest part of being a parent.
We sometimes set consequences so severe that we believe they would never break the rule. When they do we try and back track. When this happens they quickly learn that any of your rules are only guidelines and not set in stone!
Just like in business good leadership skills will show you that if your business has a rule against something and someone violates that rule you better take action in a fair and consistent way.
No different when you apply good leadership skills to parenting.
What you say must be what you mean!
The second part of that is to make sure they clearly understand what you are saying. Again, this is not any different than when you are in the business world. Set the rule and consequence of not following the rule, therefore, when the rule is broken there is no surprise about what will happen next.
Good leadership skills will also tell you that you should never set a consequence when you are angry!
Trust me when I tell you that as a parent of four wonderful children I have gotten angry and that is not a good time to ask me what I think the consequence should be. Doing so will put you in a position to have to possibly back track and recant your original consequence. This then discounts future rules and consequences you set.
This must start when the child is very young. Young but old enough to understand consequences!
Same thing for an employee! Let them know in the first few days of employment what you expect and what will happen if those expectations are not met.
Applying good leadership skills as a parent means that you establish very early in a child's life that your rules are to be followed. When they are not followed you intended to implement consequences. Those consequences will continually get more severe if they continue to not listen.
As successful parents this is just one of many good leadership skills necessary to survive!
For more information and great leadership stories visit Leadership Skills For Life! For personal stories visit Leadership Stories!