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Parents as leaders?

By Stella Collins (October 2007 Issue)
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When my children were small, I was out with my husband and we got chatting to some young graduate trainees who clearly felt they were destined for great things.

At the time I was a very happy, fulfilled, full-time mum and knew I was doing the right thing by staying at home and developing the next generation. However, I suspected this wasn’t a widely held view of motherhood and was unlikely to be held by a group of male, up-and-coming, would-be executives. I expected that, if I said I was a full-time mum, I’d be left out of the conversation – so I did some quick thinking and said that I was a “crisis management executive”.

That got their interest, and I was bombarded with questions about what a crisis management executive did. So I told the complete truth – and explained the role of a parent in business terms. The young, would-be leaders were impressed and thought my job sounded interesting, challenging, full of development opportunities and that the skills required were just the ones they wanted to acquire in their careers. They were a little disappointed that pay wasn’t great, but were definitely interested in the career opportunities.

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