Was struck after a conversation about leadership by the parallels I see between it and parenting (or, at least, the parenting values we tend to choose as a family):
- creating conditions for others to grow without treating them as “small”
- legitimate peripheral participation: creating conditions for learning by observing and participating on one’s own terms in existing practices, rather than telling about how things should be
- seriously addressing nightmares as serious stuff even when you can’t imagine how someone could be afraid of that
- nurturing passions while taking care of safety
- thinking in terms of boundaries and attractors
- telling what is going to happen and discussing the options instead of pulling others along for a pre-arranged trip
- believing that loving care and on-going conversation can get you much further than punishments and rewards
- figuring out how to express love in another’s terms, not in your own
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Lovely post — as a dad, I particularly like the point about taking others’ nightmares seriously, even when we know there’s nothing to be afraid of. Quite the challenging model for leadership!
This is a great point and something that I have thought about a lot. There are tons of parallels between the two although it seems that some people would be offended by saying that.
Great post!
I’m new to parenting with a 5th month old and really enjoyed reading the book “The Continuum Concept”. And hope to take onboard what I learn about complexity from Snowden and apply it to parenting.
Chris Corrigan has a couple of good posts about parenting and emergent learning conditions which parallels with leadership in organisations…which is really the concept of an enterprise 2.0
http://chriscorrigan.com/parkinglot/?p=976
http://chriscorrigan.com/parkinglot/?p=898
I posted about the midwife role in our homebirth…actually my post was before the actual birth.
During the birth the midwife hung back and allowed my wife and I to share the experience as much as we could, she would only intervene if really needed…she set the conditions so we felt enabled and empowered.
Very contrasted with a hospital approach of control, one-size-fits-all….
http://libraryclips.blogsome.com/2009/05/05/birthing-and-midwives-stories-facilitation-and-decision-making/
John, thanks for comments and links! As for the parenting books – I liked “The continuum concept”, but have have mixed feelings about it – I think it idealises too much this way of thinking/doing. Wrote a bit about it at http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2007/06/08/parenting-traditional-wisdom-and-modern-life/
And, since we are at parenting books – the one that I would recommend any new (especially research-minded :) parent to read is “Our Babies, Ourselves: How Biology and Culture Shape the Way We Parent” by Meredith F. Small.
These are very interesting parralel’s between the two. I find “believing that loving care and on-going conversation can get you much further than punishments and rewards” is the best trait that corresponds with leadership and a sound parenting philosophy. This deals with communication and we know that this is extremely important in a successful business and a strong family unit.