Parenting is the most common leadership role in the world.
Raising children to become happy and productive young adults is a daunting task for even the most talented parents. Of the many lessons parents want to imprint upon their children, responsibility ranks very high.
Responsible children are independent, confident, self-sufficient, and good problem-solvers. By learning how to be responsible, children also learn how to be reliable, trustworthy, and goal-directed.
No wonder instilling the value and skill of responsibility is so important to parents and children.
Extraordinary parents and parenting experts point to four critical steps for teaching children how to be responsible:
- Give the child a task or assignment they can handle.
- Accept that they are likely to misstep or misbehave.
- Express empathy, but allow them to live with the consequences of their misbehavior or error.
- Give them the same task again.
The sequence of these steps is essential.
Children learn responsibility by making mistakes and then enduring the consequences before trying the same task again. Parents who step in and interrupt any step in the process inhibit learning.
But it’s just too tempting for some parents to excuse or prevent the mistakes, thus allowing their children to avoid the consequences or remove any pressure to repeat the task. This undermines the ability of their children to learn how to value accountability and to act responsibly.
Leaders face much of the same challenge as they show their team members how to be accountable for outcomes and responsible for actions that lead to those results.
Similarly to parents, good leaders learn to accept the mistakes team members make without a lot of concern or reaction. They know those mistakes are key to learning and critical for inculcating the value of accountability if they are tied to consequences.
That’s usually the hard part for leaders.
They too often believe they must punish people for mistakes or their failure to reach the desired outcomes. In reality, the most negative consequence is usually the recognition by everyone on the team that the ball was dropped.
The best team members simply ne
