Taking time away from my career to care for my kids has made me a better leader
Daniel Broder took a step away from work to care for his children over the past few months. Not only has it made him a better parent, he explains, but a better leader in an industry where communication, distraction, and negotiation is just as important as it is when dealing with kids.
My work and family life will often overlap. Sometimes, I may need to bring work home or take my family to work. I’ve had conference calls while giving my daughter a bath and brought my daughter to planning day. A website is operational all hours of the day, so sometimes I needed to be too.
I’m also extremely fortunate to have had an employer that understands parenting is the responsibility of both parents. When my wife went back to work, I had the opportunity to take an extended period of time away from work to care for my children – an opportunity that was most definitely too good to miss.
The last few months I’ve spent with my two girls have been priceless. Not only do I believe that I’m a better parent for it, but also a better person. It’s given me time with my family, but also time to think about who I am, what I want for my family, what I want to achieve, and, surprisingly, what sort of leader I want to be.
Who would have thought that changing nappies and changing minds had more in common than sometimes being up to your elbows in shit?
Am I reading Business Insider or a post on LinkedIn, (would need some strategic spacing between sentences for Linkedin mind…)???
I could pen an article on the similarities of helping out in my local rugby club’s tuck shop and neatly bleat a list of solutions. Yawn!
[Edited under Mumbrella’s comment moderation policy]
Thanks for sharing. I’m glad that you took the time to be with your kids, if only more dads would do that.
Your lessons on how it makes you a better leader are what women have known for years – and yet somehow it has still been seen (in some places) as a negative to take time away from the office to be with kids as though your brain switches off in the process.
Whenever I see these kinds of articles I get torn between celebrating that more dads are seeing the benefits of parental leave, and frustration at the fact that if mums were saying the same thing they either wouldn’t be taken seriously or not even published because mums take time off for kids all the time.
I get your point, and it can be frustrating as women to know this is our norm, and still feel up against it. Maybe it’s naive of me, but I hope if more men are are encouraged to take parental leave and not belittled for their “lessons”, then maybe more men would. When more do, empathies might change and there’d be respect between both genders? I don’t resent my kids from discovering something I’ve known for years, or having advantages that I was never afforded…so I try to stop myself thinking this way when my husband does. But… I’m not saying it’s easy to do!!