Reflecting on Leadership: Leading like a Mother

When we think about leadership in organizations, “maternal” isn’t generally the word that comes to mind. Our employees are not our children and we are not their parents. Relationships in the workplace should be adult-to-adult. But looking at the behaviors of a great mother can help us think differently about leadership.

Alicia & Raymond with their mother, Barbara, c.1964

What qualities does the word “maternal” evoke for you?

Caretaking? Babying? Soft? Emotional? It probably depends on your relationship with your own mother, your experience as a mother or with the mothers in your life. When I think about my own mother, Barbara, these are the things that come to mind…

High Expectations

My mother expected a lot of me. If I brought home and A, she would ask if an A+ was possible. She didn’t abide short cuts - she made sure I put in the work. If she found me using Cliffs Notes for a book report (Gen Y and younger, look it up) she would quiz me on what I learned and make me research it if I didn’t know. One time when it was clear I had half-assed it, she assigned me a different book and made me write a full report. This was of course torture to a teenage Alicia, but it was her way of instilling in me the importance of putting in effort. She challenged me in a way that built my confidence and helped me set high expectations for myself.

Frequent Feedback

My mom gave me a lot of feedback. She would praise me in public and correct me in private. When I screwed up, she would ask me what I thought of my own actions and what I would do differently if I had the chance. When I was wrong, she ensured I took accountability. We didn’t sit down once a quarter to talk about how I was doing – we talked about it all the time. This was always done in an effort to improve. If I got angry at a piece of “constructive” feedback, she would remind me “only your mother will tell you.”

Unconditional Love

My mother loved me. There was never any doubt about that. She was my staunchest advocate and my fiercest defender. She stood up for me and always had my back. Even as she challenged me and corrected me, I knew that I didn’t have to earn her love. I didn’t have to beg for it. I didn’t have to prove myself in order to have it. Nothing I could do would have gotten me more or less of it. It was simply there. My mere existence made me worthy of it.

Always Teaching

My mother was a teacher, by profession and by nature. She would make up games when we were little to teach us to look around and to be curious. (How Many People Are on The Beach? Where Is She Going Later?) If I asked her how to do something (tie my shoe, make a cake, get into college) she would ask me “how do you think you do it?” I’d typically get pieces of it right and she would help me put them together. Sometimes her lessons were straightforward, sometimes the real value took years to reveal itself.

Mutual Trust and Respect

My mother trusted me. She allowed me space and privacy but was always available if I needed her. I repaid her trust with respect and generally good behavior. A key element in our mutual trust and respect was listening. If I had a problem, my mother would listen, without judgment and help me find a solution. She wouldn’t involve herself in petty teenage drama but would talk it through with me to help me figure out the right response. By really listening to me, she showed me respect and gained my trust.

Boundaries and Consequences

Both of my parents were generally pretty easy going. I had friends whose parents were very strict. I also had friends whose parents seemed not to notice or care what they were doing. I think mine had a good balance of showing us how to behave and letting us learn from our mistakes. I don’t remember ever being told not to mouth off to a teacher, but it never would have occurred to me to do so. I had a curfew – there was a grace period but repeated violations would result in the car being taken away for a time. I was never punished for making an honest mistake, mom always made sure I learned from it.

Letting Go

One of the hardest acts of being a parent is to let your children go. When I graduated from college I took a job in California. My mother was excited, supportive and proud. When I told her I was scared she said I’d be fine and focus me back on my packing list. When my plane took off, she watched from the window of the gate and sobbed (this was decades before 9/11, watching from the gate was a thing). She imagined that not only her daughter but her future grandchildren were flying away, never to return to the East Coast. Selfishly, she wanted me home with her forever. But she knew that it was time for me to take off and start my own life, separate and apart, and that ultimately we’d both be fine.

Ok, so I had a pretty great mom. What does that have to do with leadership?

I believe the qualities that made Barbara a great mother can also be seen in great leaders.

• High Expectations. Employees come to us with a unique set of skills and competencies. The job of a leader is to test and expand those skills and competencies. It doesn’t mean never being satisfied, but it means expecting great things from your employees and challenging them to do more than they think they’re capable of.

In what ways do you challenge your employees? How do you build their confidence and keep them striving for more?

• Frequent Feedback. Most organizations have defined performance review cycles. Many require quarterly performance checkpoints. A lot can happen in three months. Great leaders are in constant communication with their employees, reinforcing the behaviors they want to see, providing candid feedback on things that could been done better. If feedback is being done right, the mandated checkpoints are a formality.

How often are you checking in with your employees? Do they know where they stand? Do they have clear, well-defined areas for development?

• Unconditional Love. This one may make you uncomfortable. Is it necessary (or even appropriate) to love your employees? Not like you love your children, your parents or your romantic partner. But love as a fellow human. Seeing and appreciating all the good things that person brings and honoring that in all circumstances. To feel genuine affection for them and desire all the good things.

What would it be like to truly love your employees? What would you do more of or less of?

• Always Teaching. Great leaders make a practice of assigning employees a deliverable but letting the employee determine how to get it done. It can be tempting to prescribe the methodology or give detailed instructions, and in some cases it may be necessary for safety or compliance purposes. But wherever possible, giving employees the freedom to develop their own methods and solutions not only builds competency, it creates space for creativity that can benefit the entire organization.

What are you teaching your employees? Are you setting a good example? How do you help them develop critical thinking skills?

• Trust and Respect. Trust and respect are a two-way street. It’s not reasonable to demand respect from someone you don’t respect, or to require trust from someone you don’t trust. Giving employees the courtesy of listening to their thoughts and needs and responding to them improves the relationship and creates space for learning. Forbes has a great article on building trust with employees.

Do you trust your employees? Do you respect them? How would they know?

• Boundaries and Consequences. We talked about unconditional love, giving space for learning and treating trust and respect as a given. That does not mean that employees can do whatever they want. Boundaries are important in terms of setting clear expectations for both performance and behavior. When boundaries are violated, consequences help ensure the individual learns to take them seriously. Even more important, the broader team sees consistency between the leader’s words and actions.

How do you set boundaries for your employees? Do they know the consequences of violating those boundaries? Are you consistent?

• Letting Go. We’ve selected them, trained them, loved them and helped them build their capability beyond what they thought possible. At some point, we need to let them go. So often, employees are afraid to share their aspirations with their leaders for fear of being perceived as disloyal. As a leader, it’s critical that your employees know that you not only support their advancement, but that you actively encourage it.

Where have you been holding your employees back? What are you doing to help them advance? Do they know they have your support in growing their careers?

All structures - family, organization, government - are made up of people and all need strong leadership. Maternal in this context does not mean strictly female. This article from Psychology Today describes the maternal leadership style of former Brazilian President Lula da Silva, a wildly popular leader who healed deep ideological divides and improved his country’s self-esteem while overseeing an economic turnaround.

What lessons did you learn from your mother…or from your father, or any of the adults who helped make you who you are? I invite you to reflect on those relationships and how those concepts and habits might enhance your leadership.