Management might be something you can learn from a book. But leadership? I don’t know — maybe I just haven’t found the right book yet. I’ve read a lot of them, I’ve sat through my fair share of corporate seminars, skimmed the trendy articles, and watched the TED talks. There are a ton of great nuggets in all of them, and I won’t tell you they’re not valuable because they’ve enriched my perspective in important ways. But did they change my foundational understanding of leadership? I wouldn’t say so.
For me, the most effective leadership lessons happen outside the office — at home. In the messy, unfiltered moments with family, I’ve been tested and reminded that there’s a vast difference between leadership and management. If you’re a parent, a sibling, or a leader in your community, you know the moments I’m talking about:
- When you’re asked a tough question, and there’s no good answer.
- When you’re balancing the needs of different personalities, none of whom will compromise.
- When you have to listen more than you talk because the stakes are bigger than hitting KPIs.
- When you realize no one follows a leader they can’t trust.
- When you see firsthand how your actions teach others how to act — for better or worse.
The mettle of my leadership is something I’ve been working on long before I set foot in a boardroom. It was first forged on my grandfather’s farm, where the seeds of responsibility were planted early (pun intended). It was thoroughly vetted when I became a father of five. And as I witnessed the world through the eyes of my six grandkids, it was transfigured. Here’s what leading a family has taught me about leading teams.
1. Stop trying to manage people like they’re a project plan.
One of the first things I learned from raising kids is that no two children respond to the same approach. I’ve got five kids, and you’d swear they were raised in five different households. Each one is wired differently, which means how I parent them — and now how I grandparent their kids — has to be strategic. Very strategic.
You want a perfect metaphor for leadership? Try herding five kids through a grocery store at 6 p.m. without losing your mind. It’s chaos. But in that chaos, you learn fast that you can’t manage people like tasks on a checklist. Leadership is messy. People are complicated.
In the business world, we get obsessed with process, structure, and uniformity. We love standardization, SOPs, best practices, and simple solutions. But in real life, whether you’re leading a team of executives or wrangling teenagers, you can’t get it done without knowing what makes each person tick and adjusting your approach accordingly.
2. If you have to say “employees first” — you’re doing it wrong.
There’s a mantra for contact center leadership these days: Put employees first, and customers will follow. I’ve been watching leaders put up plaques with slogans like this for decades. And you know what? It doesn’t matter what the plaque says if you’re not walking the talk.
Growing up, my grandfather didn’t need a plaque to remind him of his values. He exemplified them every day. I remember a storm rolling in one night, and my grandfather was out until 3 a.m., not harvesting his own crops, but helping neighboring farmers get theirs in before the storm hit. When I asked him why he was doing it for free, he said, “That’s my neighbor. We help our neighbors.”
That’s leadership in action. And our community was better for it. He set an example that resonated with our neighbors more than any platitude ever could. It certainly resonated with me, and the experience shaped my actions as a consultant and father alike.
3. Leading is listening.
I started my career in a command-and-control environment. A lot of people think leadership means giving orders and expecting people to fall in line. And when my kids were little, I’ll admit it, I threw them the old “Do as I say, not as I do.”
It did not work.
I’ve learned more — and gotten more done — by asking questions and listening than I ever did from barking orders. You can tell a 14-year-old to clean their room a hundred times, or you can sit down and figure out what’s going on in their life that’s keeping them from doing it. The same applies to teams. Find out what’s blocking them, what’s stressing them out, and how you can help. It’s not rocket science, but it does require something that sets bad managers and great leaders apart: humility.
Leadership is about figuring out what your people need to succeed and providing that for them — not assuming you have all the answers. Because there will be plenty of times when you just don’t.
4. Be a human.
Everything you do in your personal life teaches you something about how to work. And the work you do shapes who you are when you’re off the clock. Too often, managers build professional personas for the professional world. Rather than bringing themselves to work, they become their title, and they rely on their identity in their role to establish authority.
But this kind of management is empty. It’s certainly not leadership. People might follow and comply on the surface, but they won’t trust a leader who hides behind titles and roles. You have to show up as a real, complete person to earn the authority people invest in.
My son Parker’s graduation post on LinkedIn got 6,000 impressions. A post about work? A few hundred. Why? Because people connect with people — not consultants, managers, or thought leaders. If you think leading people is a separate skill from living life and being part of a community, you’re missing the point of leadership. The best leaders bring people together to create solutions and build new things. That happens everywhere, every day — not just in the office.
Stop trying to separate the personal and professional. Show up as the same person in both places. If you’re not respectful, culturally sensitive, or thoughtful in your personal life, maybe take a look at that. But let your personal experiences inform your leadership style. It’s not unprofessional; it’s human.
5. Consistency beats perfection every time.
Perfection is overrated. If you spend all your time trying to craft the perfect strategy or the perfect speech, you’re going to miss what really matters: showing up. People don’t want perfect leaders. They want leaders who are there for them — consistently.
I’ve found that what matters most to my kids and grandkids isn’t whether I have all the answers — it’s whether I showed up when they needed me. Whether I was present and engaged. And I’ve found the same to be 100% true throughout my decades in consulting and contact center operations. Agents don’t need leadership that looks the part. They need leaders who consistently serve them and enable them to perform.
You don’t need to have every answer, and you don’t need to be perfect. But you do need to be there, ready for anything. That’s what builds trust, and that’s what makes a leader worth following.
6. What you sow is what you reap.
It’s one of the oldest lessons in history, but it’s also one of the truest: You get out what you put in. Whether you’re like my grandfather working with soybeans or like me today working with clients and contact centers, this principle holds. When you invest time, effort, and care into something — or someone — it pays off. When you yell at your kids, that energy comes back around … and greatly multiplied.
Leadership is an investment. If you invest in your team — listen to them, give them the tools they need, celebrate their successes — it’s going to come back tenfold. You’ll reap loyalty, trust, and engagement. But if you take shortcuts, micromanage, or put your ego first, don’t be surprised when you’re met with resistance, low morale, and high attrition.
When you plant something, you don’t expect it to grow overnight. You nurture it. You water it. You make sure it gets enough light. Leadership is no different.
Lead to serve. Serve to lead.
At the end of the day, leadership is about helping and influencing people. And the most valuable leadership lessons are learned by serving others — in the office or outside. They’re learned at home, in your relationships and in the everyday moments that shape who you are. If you want to be a better leader, look at how you treat your family and friends.
That’s where the real work begins.