Top 5 Ways Parenting Wisdom Transforms Professional Leadership

Explore the profound insights learned from parenting, from adapting to unexpected challenges in business to nurturing curiosity and embracing failure. Discover how the simplicity of a child’s approach holds valuable lessons for personal growth and leadership in the professional sphere.

1. Art of embracing imperfection

In the professional sphere: Covid has been one such influential factor in most businesses. Barring a few lucky companies that happened to be placed correctly in the Covid era, most organisations have had to pivot their strategy one way or the other! Crisis amplifies flaws and the pace at which the coronavirus magnified and accelerated; the damage these flaws created has been eye-opening and replete with lessons to be learnt. Keeping up the pace with your customer requires a deep understanding of where they and their experiences lie. New customer buying habits and expectations are being created right now and the businesses that are analyzing these emerging trends and modelling out the long-term implications will adjust faster to the global economy’s new normal.

2. The case of curiosity

The business case? The inspiration for the Polaroid instant camera was a three-year-old’s question. Inventor Edwin Land’s daughter was impatient to see a photo her father had just snapped. When he explained that the film had to be processed, she wondered aloud, “Why do we have to wait for the picture?” Most of the breakthrough discoveries and remarkable inventions throughout history, from flints for starting a fire to self-driving cars, have something in common: They are the result of curiosity. The impulse to seek new information and experiences and explore novel possibilities is a basic human attribute used extensively by a toddler but unfortunately reserved by an adult! Maintaining a sense of wonder is crucial to innovation. Engaging with my little one is inspiring me to look for ways to nurture my team’s curiosity to fuel learning and discovery.

3. Get a little obsessed

At work: Let’s say you wake up one morning with a craving for a Cinnamon Roll Frappuccino Blended Coffee. It’s the only thing you’re currently concerned about. As a result, you grab your keys and wallet and head to your closest Starbucks to satisfy your craving. People who run successful companies have this feeling on a daily basis. When they want something, they devote their entire focus and energy to making it a reality. Because of their obsession, they’re constantly thinking about new opportunities and innovative ways to enhance a product or service.

4. Unify the masses

As Corporate Leaders why is this learning so important? Executives who want to accomplish something of significance need a team to help them do it. We all work in and lead teams of people every day, but rarely think about all the complicated dynamics at play in these interactions. Teamwork is hard work, and without conscious effort, it’s easy for teams to devolve into dysfunction and disunity. Seeing my family interact in the presence of my son, made me realise the need of identifying unifying agents within my team and focus on common threads even if they don’t seem important at that point in my larger roadmap.

5. Don’t be afraid to fail or fall

I’m seeing my son grow into a handsome young toddler. Do you know what’s the trait that makes me fall in love with him a little more than yesterday (apart from the fact that I’m his mother!!)? It’s when he laughs after he gets hurt. I believe it’s his coping mechanism to reassure himself that nothing really happened! From twisting and turning to one fine day falling off the bed, to sitting up and crawling, taking baby steps and now trying to run through the house, this journey has been full of bruises and short-lived frustrations followed by him getting back up and being fearless in the face of failure!

By Aastha Sharma, Co-Founder & Chief Evangelist, Veris