I am a full-time father while my wife works and goes to school as well. So, aside from the military and the casino I used to work at, my volunteer experience in high school, and a few security odd-jobs while my wife was in nursing school, I have not had too much personal experience. Therefore, I am attempting to write this in the perspective of a full-time father being a leader since I am sure that a few people have already taken the military approach. I am going to be going over leader behaviors and how I have had to guide my children in each of the behaviors that we have learned.
The first behavior is directive leadership. This type of leadership involves the leader giving instructions to his/her followers about their task, what is expected, how it should be done, and when it should be accomplished by (Northouse, 2016). My oldest daughter has ADHD and objective defiance disorder. Therefore, she gets side tracked a lot, especially with her homework. In order for me to help manage her school work and her behaviors at home I have had to be a little creative. For example, I have had to set a timer on her iPad for her to read each night. I give her a book and tell her you have to read for 20 minutes and out loud otherwise her time starts back over. This allows my daughter to have a clear task at hand, being to read a certain book for a certain time, and for her to have a clear expectation of her performance and the consequences of not achieving this.
I am a sucker for my middle child as she was my first biological child. She also adores me over her mother and seeks to please me each day. Therefore, I am more of a supportive leader with her. Being a supportive leader, you take a friendlier approach and attend to their well-being (Northouse, 2016). I tend to keep her as happy as possible, which is also a goal of being a supportive leader (Northouse, 2016). I don’t like for my daughter to think that I am an overpowering person, but I want her to know that I am her father. I seek her opinion in things, such as dinner choices and things to do because she is more adventurous and more opt to telling me her opinions which I do like to embrace when I can. Because of this I am also a participative leader towards her (Northouse, 2016). Most people can also tell that I do favor my child and because of this I do tend to take her side over things when confrontation arises between her and the other two children.
My youngest child is my son. He has had chronic ear infections and went through surgery which has questionably helped with questionable hearing impairment as none of his hearing tests ever come out the same twice. He was also very sick as a child and had to be in and out of doctor’s offices frequently up until about 2 years old. Due to his chronic health problems he is behind developmentally. My son is 2.5 years-old and learned to walk late, talk late, and is now potty-training late. Therefore, for him I am more achievement-oriented in my leadership approach with him. My son needs goals to meet and he has to work at the highest level possible in order to achieve those goals (Northouse, 2016). I set high standards for him because I feel that my wife has coddled him too much throughout his childhood thus far because of his health conditions. I try to instill confidence in him and make him repeat what I say in order to get something so that he learns to speak more frequently and more clearly in hopes that he will use his words better and not just point and motion for things.
As a full-time father I exhibit all of these leadership behaviors with all three of my children because none of them respond in the same way to the same leadership behaviors. Each child needs a different focus and as a leader I have to be able to properly motivate and have each child achieve goals in ways they will respond to.
Northouse, P.G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Seventh Edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
jrk32 says
I think parenting is a great example to choose when illustrating leadership behaviors. Parents are leaders, kids are followers–very similar to work environments. I thought talking about parenting for this week’s blog as well, particularly when reading the situational leadership approach.
As you say, different kids require different styles, and the philosophy behind the situational leadership approach posits that we are all capable of “wearing the suits” of different leadership styles. In the workplace, being flexible about your leadership style is arguably optional. With parenting, though, we don’t have a choice. Flexibility in our style is required, not just with different kids, but with different situations.
I have one child who is a total D4 when it comes to homework but a D3 with chores. Looking back on the recommended leadership approaches for each, I think I’ve been following them naturally before I took this class, just because they seem very common sense to me. I don’t even have to remind her to do her homework. I don’t intervene on that task at all unless she asks for my help. When it comes to her housework, however, I know I can’t just bark at her all day to do things. I have to make them look like her idea, so I get a lot of input from her. I ask, “what chores do you think you will have time to get done today?” and she makes her own list. From our lesson, this is a supporting approach.