Working mothers have the best leadership skills and here are 5 things we can learn from them

A female leader, who's also a mother, is capable of operating with empathy and balance. Photo Courtesy: Shutterstock/India Pictures

Motherhood is one of the most challenging things a woman can face in her life. It's beautiful, no doubt. But at the same time, it's about taking up the responsibility of a brand-new human being--their growth, their progress, the human values they pick up--everything. When these women, equipped with the knowledge of human handling at its most basic, enter the world of their workplace, there are many things that set them apart. But being a leader has to be the first.

Bear in mind that mothers are the ones making the call when it comes to what's best and what's to be taught and fed to their child. There's a skill-set that's almost perfected when perfecting another human, and it's these skills that give her leadership skills we'll take a few trials to learn. So here are a few reasons why working mothers have some stellar leadership qualities.

They're the People Who Might Know Exactly When to Let go

Mothers have a sixth sense, they know when to push and exactly when to let go. Parenting, we all know, is a constant tussle between when to push a tiny human to a certain thing, and when to let them be. It's an acquired skill that comes handy when it comes to giving the employees complete freedom with their work, but also course correcting them in case they tend to deviate.

They Can Gauge When to Step Back

Rolling with the punches is something parenthood teaches you. They know that not everything can be planned and sometimes, letting things take its course is the best thing to do. If we look at toddlers, we can say exactly how they developed this talent. It cannot be foreseen when they vomit, you just have to deal with it when it happens. That state of mind where surprises just surprise you--not throw you off-guard, that's what helps a leader make massive changes and then carry them off with ease. It also helps them understand when work will not bear fruit.

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They Pick up on Details That Others Might Miss

Good leadership is understanding that a team is made of many characters with their respective traits. Motherhood gives hard lessons on developing a personalized approach. As a parent, she has to deal with her child in a certain way to get him/her to work-something quite akin to people in a team. What works for A, may not work for B. Knowing that making A work like B is not a solution is the wisdom leadership calls for.

They're Great at Balancing Mutually Exclusive Needs

The things you have to go through in Motherhood! Having more than a child means that one may like what the other abhors. There's a great tussle that goes on with who gets what without bringing the house down. If that's not the definition of a team of ambitious adults, we will never know what is. Motherhood, at its very core is about balance. It just percolates into all walks of life, which means even the work space.

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They Know How to Strike the Right Chord Between Empathy and Balance

Motherhood calls for a woman to step outside herself and think through her child. Parenthood perhaps, is the biggest lesson on empathy. If incorporated into the work space, this trait helps create a demarcation. It helps one realise that pushing someone to be good at what they do is amazing, but at the end of the day an employee goes home, back to his/her own life. Just like education's important, but so is taking a break. As a parent, a woman has to learn to understand when her child is tiring out and as a leader she has to know that she cannot force people to get work done beyond a certain extent or after a certain hour.

There are things that go beyond workplaces and four-walled houses. There places where the two can meet. But Motherhood is a lesson for life, it's wisdom you learn through your own experiences. And there's no great leader who does not have a strong foundation of experiences to fall upon.