The Leadership Skills You Gain From Caregiving

The untapped potential of parenting + caregiving as a clear path towards developing necessary leadership and CEO skills

This post was originally published February 24th, 2023. It has been updated and revised.

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Parenting is a time of deep transformation, but our culture doesn’t talk enough about the real superpowers that becoming a parent offers:

• The ability to tape, glue, or MacGyver your way out of nearly anything. Yes, my child's current puffer jacket has been reinforced with duct tape.

• Your ultra-creative negotiation skills, formed from years of dealing with unreasonable, fickle, tiny human beings. From the forced choice, to psychological incentives, to the dangling bribes, to the big eyes—you can do it all. 

• The ability to move and live within uncertainty. "I'm not sure when that's going to happen, sweetie. I can't tell you or promise that for you right now."

• The need to be impeccable with your word, because if you make a promise, you shall never pass that exit on the highway again without hearing about it. You will learn to keep promises or you'll never let it down—making you a stickler for precise language and cautious about the hand-waving promises you maybe used to make.

• The ability to empathize, understand, and validate people. "That looks like it hurts so much. You really didn't like it when your brother punched you in the face. I'm so sorry that happened to you. I can see that’s making you really angry. I’d be angry, too.”

• The amount of stamina, resilience, and adaptability needed. I never realized that a 2-year-old and a 4-year-old are like animated kettlebells. Turns out I'm carrying 75+ pounds of wiggly, defiant humans across steps and bridges and grocery carts and escalators and more.

• The ability to put others before yourself. “Oh you need to poop? Go ahead, I'll just cross my legs in a pee dance for the next twenty minutes.”

• The skills of tending and befriending, and community building. You're going to see these parents everywhere—school, around town, after-care, and they're probably going to be in summer camp with you. That and you have to talk to someone; so you begin to strike up conversation out of desperation and sleep deprivation.

These are just some of the skills you build through parenting littles. And it turns out, these skills are really important for another realm, too…

These are also the skills that we need in CEOs.

We need creative problem solving, empathy, resilience, stamina, clear communication, patience, and the ability to tolerate uncertainty in today’s leaders.

Parenting delivers this in spades. Parenting expands your ability to understand other people, to weather the storm, to attend to internal and external emotional hurricanes, and it asks you to cultivate patience like none other.

In Western cultures, however, mothers and caretakers are mostly rendered invisible, bound to the home, and isolated from one another. As a result, this type of skill-building is often invisible and unrecognized. 

At Startup Parent, we want to remind you of all of these newly-acquired skills. Your journey in parenting is building you into the next-level leader that our world so deeply needs.

Parenting is an unrecognized leadership incubator.

We believe that parenting is an unrecognized leadership incubator for what the world needs next—the skills you'll need for the rest of your lifetime. When we bring people together in our communities, we take these skills and build on them, expanding your leadership toolkit. 

Skills like:

• Learning how to make hard decisions with multiple stakeholders and only partial information.

• Learning how to listen to your internal voice and hear what your gut has to say—and recognizing that "because" is a complete reason.

• Strengthening your ability to say no when you need to, even to things that you really want.

• Getting better at setting clear boundaries around work, family, and leisure needs.

• Realizing that doing this alone is a recipe for utter chaos, and learning to lean on and build support systems so you have places to go when you need help and support.

• Learning how to ask for help and support, and learning to ask more often than you think you should.

• Identifying what you need to pick yourself back up when you fall apart, and building a custom "self-care toolkit" to help you refuel.

• Honoring how much rest matters, and not trying to just "push harder," because that doesn't work for most parents.

• Accepting that it's okay not to have all the answers, and that you are limited, fallible, and human.

• Discovering how to be brave and vulnerable when you're with a group of people you trust.

What skills has parenting taught you? What life lessons, spiritual teachings, wisdom, or business savvy have you gained through all of this? Leave a note in the comments.

— Sarah Peck
CEO & Founder
Startup Parent

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The Wise Women's Council is a year-long leadership incubator for business moms.

Translating parenting skills into leadership savvy is what we’re all about in The Wise Women's Council, and it's why we're building a Fatherhood Group and a community for Founders With Kids.

We believe there’s a better, more innovative way to build and lead. The Wise Women’s Council is a year-long leadership incubator for business moms who are tired of hustle culture — women who want to learn how to live and lead differently. Come be around other working moms who get it.

Because most business advice today doesn’t work for working moms.

If you need real people to talk to, and you want to make business-parent-friends, check out the Wise Women's Council, which is now open for enrollment. We only open twice a year for new members, and we'd love to see your face in the group. 

I hope you apply to join us if it's right for you.