I have a hard time thinking of a more definitive example of leadership than that of being a Mom or Dad.  As a parent, we are responsible for modeling, caring, vision casting, training, equipping, disciplining, encouraging. . .  and the list goes on.

Yet, there often is a disconnect between how we lead our children and how we lead our team.  How often have you seen the leader of an organization who is dynamic and strong in his or her occupation, but is on the sidelines at home?

In personal development circles, or even in pop-psychology, we hear about the need to balance our work lives with our personal lives, but as I have written about before, I believe a work-life balance is a fallacy.  Instead we have to integrate our work lives with our personal lives.

Here are some ways that you can hone your leadership skills where it really matters – at home.

Modeling – Show your children the correct way to respond to a situation, complete a task, deal with disappointment.  Set a challenge for yourself to not simply tell your child to do something, but to instead to say, “come here, let me show you how to clean the sink.”

Serving – Take the enthusiasm with which you serve your team to serve your family.  An example may be as simple as getting home in time to fix dinner and let your spouse make an early evening yoga class.

Planning – If you are gifted at creating annual/quarterly/monthly training plans for your organization, use those same skills to make a “training plan” for your family.  Go ahead and plan your trips, make room for down time together, and put dates on the calendar.

Training – As a leader in your vocational field, you are expected to train your team.  As a Mom or Dad, you are also expected to train your team.  How are the little people on your team developing?  Are they gaining the skills to be the emotionally healthy and competent grown ups you want them to be?

Leading like Mom and Dad is hard.  After all, leading as Mom and Dad is a 24/7/365 endeavor.  But, leading like Mom and Dad works not only at home – those same principles also carry over to our vocations.