Parents Who Lead: The Leadership Approach You Need to Parent with Purpose, Fuel Your Career, and Create a Richer Life

But there is hope – in the shape of this thought-provoking book, "Parents Who Lead." Subtitled "The Leadership Approach You Need to Parent with Purpose, Fuel Your Career, and Create a Richer Life," it offers new perspectives and practical plans – which, the authors promise, will give us more control over everything we care about.

At the time of recording, many working parents have had their lives turned upside down by COVID-19, so that promise sounds more tempting than ever. In many households, trying to work and parent simultaneously has suddenly attained a whole new level of difficulty.

But if you're expecting a guide to achieving "work-life balance," think again. This book warns against compartmentalizing your roles and responsibilities. Instead, it aims to connect them. At its heart is the simple, inescapable truth that work affects parenting, and vice versa. So, we need to look at the twin challenges of parenting and professional life together, then plan a way forward that embraces them both. It's about "integration," not "balance."

This message is meant for moms and dads in any workplace – and at every point on the parenting journey, whether you've got babies, toddlers, tweens, or teens, or even if you've reached the empty-nester phase. This book is refreshingly honest about the difficulties all working parents face, but it's also relentlessly positive about the improvements they can make at every stage.

Both authors are working parents themselves, as well as leading voices in their fields. Stewart Friedman is an organizational psychologist at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, where he founded the Leadership Program and the Work/Life Integration Project. He's also the author of several best-selling books, including "Total Leadership" – and some of the key themes in that book are extended here.

His co-writer, Alyssa Westring, is Associate Professor of Management at the Driehaus College of Business at DePaul University, and Director of Research at the Total Leadership organization.

So, keep listening to learn how to map out your family's ideal future, to harmonize work and home, and to help your company tap into the true power of parents.

"Parents Who Lead" is an unusual book, in that it sets out to blend the art of parenting with the science of leadership. Leaf through its pages and you'll see advice about family mealtimes and Little League friendships one moment, then management meetings and office politics the next.

But this isn't by chance. According to the authors, it's only by taking this holistic view of our experience that we'll start living the lives we really want.

They make two points particularly clearly. First, that the most successful professionals, especially those in leadership roles, should be the most effective parents. And second, that parents at the top of their game should also be flying high at work. You can be great in both realms, they say. There's no "either/or." But there's work to do before that happens. You need to clarify your goals, agree a clear set of values, and follow them – in both sides of your life.

The authors draw on their personal experiences throughout the book, as well as presenting case-study examples involving the many families and organizations they've worked with.

Take Deena and Jake, for instance. They're a great example of what life is like for many working parents. Constantly rushing, reacting to the chirping of their phones, and feeling out of control on all fronts. They both feel like they're failing everyone.

They're stuck in a "sacrificial" version of being working parents. Co-author Stewart Friedman highlighted the dangers of that in his earlier book "Total Leadership." None of us should aim for "balance," he says, since that suggests we're losing out on some things, in order to make other things work. Instead, we need to ramp up the interconnections between the different parts of our lives, to give us the time and energy to do all the things we want.

In Deena and Jake's case, that would also allow them to do more of their parenting together – for the good of all concerned.

So, what are these aspects of our lives that should be aligned, rather than in conflict? Once again, this book extends a theme from "Total Leadership" – the "four-way win," based on work, home, community, and us. If a couple like Deena and Jake can do things that support all four, they'll be well on their way to regaining control, and feeling like their hard work is starting to pay off.

To help them, "Parents Who Lead" is backed up by some valuable online resources and tools. We particularly like the "Four Circles" exercise, to spot potential overlaps between the four key areas. There's also a questionnaire to assess strengths and weaknesses relating to work-life integration, so you know which skills to draw on – and which you'll need to boost. It seems like a good way to get started on the wider process the authors want you to follow. You begin with self-analysis, but quickly move on to sharing your findings as a couple – so you can plan your next steps together.

Part 1 of the book, "Partnership," goes through that in detail. It opens with another case-study couple describing their perfect day – 15 years from now.

Rachel dreams of working for a health-care consultancy. Josh wants his role to be more focused on innovation. For them both to be happy, they'll need to find ways to include each partner's individual needs in their plans.

But they should also focus on their shared hopes and dreams. They both want to do more exercise, for example. And they both want to make time for charity work. Recognizing and working on these values – rather than getting caught up in short-term goals – will help them make the most of their partnership and their family life.

Of course, this sort of conversation may seem daunting to many couples. But the book makes some persuasive arguments for giving it a try – not least that it's a strategy used by many successful businesses. They identify their core values, decide how they're going to pursue them, then agree on ways for all their people to help. And there's plenty of research to prove that this approach works.

According to the authors, couples who operate like this at home should be well-equipped to succeed at work. And the more companies there are that behave like this, the more parents there'll be to take the same positive, value-led approach at home.

That's the theory, anyway. In practice, the authors recognize that life is often messy, and that no two families' circumstances are the same. They also know that different organizations need to weave different elements into their plans. And some professions will simply be more challenging for working parents than others.

However, they say that everyone can still benefit from focusing on just four common "domains" – Career, Family, Community, and Self. These are based closely on the "four-part wins" you heard about earlier. We're told to start noticing where these strands already overlap, but also to find new ways to weave them together.

There's a clever tool for scoring yourself in all four domains – in terms of the importance and attention you give each one, and your current level of satisfaction. You do this for yourself, but also for your partner, always looking for ways of living and working that will help you both.

Part 2, "Your World," explains how to put those plans into action. It's all about engaging more, with children, colleagues and communities. But the authors stress that it's not simply a case of spending more time together. That, they say, is as much a fallacy as believing that more time at work solves everything there. It's what you do with your time that counts. Even some simple time-management moves can pay dividends, if they help you do the things that matter most.

So, case-study couple Rachel and Josh know that they'll always have to "divide and conquer" in some aspects of parenting. But even separate activities can be part of their value-driven grand plan. And when one of them isn't with the kids, that person is likely doing something that will benefit them all in the long run.

It's in this part of the book that the links between parenting and professional life really begin to emerge. Whether you're with your kids or your colleagues, look after their safety, give them the attention they need – but also set clear expectations and boundaries. Model the behavior you want to see in others, and lead cultural change by example.

Above all, deal with the real people in your life – not the idealized versions that you perhaps hoped for! Find out what your partner, kids and colleagues really need from you, and always show them how they fit into your plans.

In line with the book's step-by-step structure, Part 3 explores "Your Evolution." The approach here is a scientific one: planning changes, implementing them, evaluating, and then adjusting your next moves accordingly. A volunteer day with your family, for example, might be a "four-way win" – strengthening community ties, inspiring your kids, boosting your sense of fulfillment, and giving you new local knowledge to use at work. Then again, it might fall completely flat. You just don't know until you try.

We like the handy scorecard that accompanies each experiment. It helps you to set goals and metrics, but also to gage the real impact of whatever you attempt. It's a great example of how you can be more professional in your parenting, and more human the rest of the time.

The authors believe this integrated approach will soon have us looking at life through a new lens. We'll realize that we have more love and support than we thought. We'll start to see that many of the expectations we place on ourselves aren't real, and that we have more freedom to make changes than we think. Above all, we'll see that good leadership is essential wherever we are – alone, in the community, with our family, or at work.

So, what's our verdict on "Parents Who Lead" as a whole?

It's certainly an ambitious book, and it has to work quite hard at times to pull all its strands together. Perhaps that's inevitable, since it's exploring life in the round, and asking readers to work on many different aspects of it at once. But the authors supply plenty of reasons to embrace the challenge. And they offer a very hopeful vision for the future – especially if the changes we make really can advance things for parents everywhere.

There's some extra information in the Postscript about how to make that happen. One way is to adapt company policies to accommodate working parents, and to be fair to everyone, whether they've got kids or not. Another is to make parenting an ongoing focus within coaching initiatives.

It's noticeable that the research focuses on straight couples, and that many of the case studies involve fairly traditional – and often rather affluent – family set-ups. These won't be relatable to every reader, particularly those parenting alone. And many simply don't have the luxury of choice described by some of the interviewees.

However, the authors are confident that their advice applies to any kind of parent or family, and there are plenty of ideas for sharing the parenting adventure with others. Overall, we feel there's just about enough variety in the case studies to inspire most readers that they, too, can give some of these ideas a try.

The current global situation makes this book relevant even beyond the working parent community. COVID-19 has made many people reassess their priorities and redraw their plans. For many organizations, the aftermath will involve difficult decisions about working arrangements. But perhaps they'll grasp the opportunities, too – to reshape some of their processes, and improve key aspects of their culture. Maybe they'll realize the importance of giving working parents more consideration and support.

Some organizations will doubtless find that easier than others. And, however life pans out after this crisis, many working parents will likely be faced with even more challenges than before.

This fresh-thinking book should make them feel better about pushing on, and more hopeful about their chances of success. Their adaptability and resilience will be invaluable, and the integrated, value-led approach they can champion will surely be more important than ever.

In fact, as we gradually regroup and rethink after coronavirus, working parents may well be the very best people to lead the sorts of changes we need most.

"Parents Who Lead: The Leadership Approach You Need to Parent with Purpose, Fuel Your Career, and Create a Richer Life," by Stewart D. Friedman and Alyssa F. Westring, is published by Harvard Business Review Press.

That's the end of this episode of Mind Tools Book Insights from Emerald Works. Thanks for listening. Click here to buy the book from Amazon.