Leading at work like you do at home

by Fatima Calderon

Often, skills are transferable in life. How we lead at home can be applied to successful leadership at work.

First of all, we ARE leaders at home. We not only manage our kids' activities (let's get real, sometimes we run or husband's too), we inspire them, we teach them lessons on a daily basis, through our words and actions, we are their role models, and we influence their actions -all qualities of a great leader.

Can we apply some of the skills we use with or kids to our work, with our employees? I don't mean we should treat our employees like

children, of course.

For example, I streamline my mornings at home by getting ready the night before. I supervise the kids taking out their uniforms including socks and shoes and leaving them reachable for the morning. I also check with them that they have their backpacks ready with the actual things they'll need the next day and that their homework is done.

This is an approach that could work well at work too. We could offer our team a little preview of the next day: we'll continue working on such project, certain deadline is approaching, we have to finalize certain things, etc. That way the team will know what you're expecting from them the next day and they can get their mindsets ready, their game plan on.

So, the idea is to think about how we're successful at home and take those skills and strategies to our business.

What about you? Do you think that any of your "home skills" can apply to a business setting?