Rowitz On Leadership

It is hard to imagine a family functioning without leadership skills. Families need a 100% commitment on the part of the parents. If one or both parents are working, the 100% commitment needs to occur through the shared leadership of both parents working together. Justice Sotamayor said that her 100% commitment to her career and her dream to be a judge meant that she would need to forego a personal family life for herself. It is difficult to create a balance between work and family when you make a total commitment to career. A 50% commitment to work means that you have only a 50% time available to your family. Thus, two working parents need to compromise so that a 100% commitment becomes possible. The parent who commits totally to the family allows the other parent to commit to work at a higher percentage

Shared leadership involves joint decision-making and the sharing of home responsibilities. Children increase the complexity of family life from reevaluating parental responsibilities, providing for alternate child care when the parents have outside responsibilities, determination of required and voluntary external responsibilities, and adjustments for different leadership styles of each parent. As the children get older, parents will need to develop mentoring skills and skills in delegation. Delegation of home responsibilities will increase as children grow. In addition, the parental leaders will have to learn how to deal with conflict and learn techniques for resolving conflicts and using negotiation strategies. Parents will also need to become good managers of the households resources. Budgeting is an important part of home management. Food preparation also requires management skills. In fact, working people can learn much from leaders at home which serves as excellent preparation for leadership in the work environment.