Leadership Lessons from Mother's Day

This Mother’s Day season I had a chance to slow down due to recovering from a surgery (I know - I should find non-hospital related ways to rest as well 🙂 I am working on it. 🙂).  This slower pace has allowed me to be very present and more observant of what is happening around me. It also has given me time to reflect on the intricate juggle of responsibilities of working moms striving for work/life harmony.

In my current state, I cannot drive and spend most of my time at home recovering. This means that I am not able to do kid drop offs, work, workout, travel, teach fitness classes, or anything in my normal routine. Day to day that translates into not waking up at 5:30am to get in my workout before anyone in my house or at work needs me. Eating breakfast with the kids before they go to school (instead of running past them eating breakfast to shower post gym and start my work day prior to jumping into the car for a 75 min round trip school drop). Anxiously awaiting the kids' arrival in the afternoons so I can sit with them to help with homework (instead of not being here when they arrive as I am traveling for work or at the office or in a meeting). Sitting with them and together trying to guess which item is cake on the TV show “Is it Cake?” (instead of being in meetings or finishing work). 

They LOVE me not having anything to do. It is their favorite “mom state.” This Mother’s Day I was reflecting on if my kids favorite “mom state” is “mom not working,” how can working moms “win” the war on work/life harmony? 

I have noticed more tension between work and life as I have progressed in my career. As a female executive, the balance feels even harder to achieve. To assess if this “feeling” was reflective of reality, I did some research on the most prevalent unique challenges of female executive working moms. Here are the challenges I discovered we face:

1. Limited Time: Executives typically have demanding schedules that leave little time for personal or family activities. Balancing high-level responsibilities at work with the needs of their children can be exceptionally challenging for female executives.        “I can attest to a legit lack of time.” 

2. Work-Life Integration: Achieving work-life balance can be even more elusive for executive working mothers, as their roles often blur the boundaries between work and personal life. They may find it difficult to switch off from work, even during family time.         “I can attest to this. My kids have sat through so many meetings while they are in the car that they know my co-workers first and last names and ask me about conclusions of problems I was actively trying to solve but didn’t by the time they got out of the car.” 

3. Leadership Expectations: Female executives may feel the need to embody leadership qualities both at work and at home, setting an example for their children while also managing teams and leading projects in the workplace.             “I think it's important that my kids, especially my daughter, see their black mother holding an executive position in a big company. There are not many of us in those ranks yet and I want them to know it's possible.” 

4. Judgment and Scrutiny: Female executives may face additional judgment and scrutiny regarding their parenting decisions, as society often places higher expectations on women in leadership roles to excel in all aspects of their lives.        “You will not believe the amount of times that the person next to me on a flight when they discover I am flying for work has said with shock and disdain “ If you are traveling for work, where are your kids?!!!” (First of all, you don’t know me or my kids so why are you so concerned about us? Second of all, with their very capable father. Third of all, you sir are also traveling for work with kids - where are they?!! Wait…I don't care at all so no need to share.)”

5. Lack of Support: Despite holding high-ranking positions, female executives may still encounter a lack of support from their organizations in terms of flexible work arrangements, child care assistance, or policies that accommodate their dual roles as leaders and mothers.      “Thankfully, I cannot attest to this as Hays is very supportive of female executives and working parents in general. We have policies and benefits that support working parents, like ramp back programs, hybrid working policies, and general flexibility when life is life'ing.”

So with this additional complexity, how can female executives “win” at home while winning at work? It’s hard is the short of it, but not impossible. But expect to face some challenging trade offs. 

To give this challenge a real persona, I reflected back to a conversation I had last month with a female executive. She is the VP of Sales globally in a large publicly traded company. She is a mom of four kids and now one, her oldest, is graduating high school and preparing to leave for college. In our conversation at a dinner party it was clear she was struggling with the fact that she spent all of her daughter's life trying to figure out how to manage the balance between work and home and never feeling like she did it successfully. In some ways she felt regret, but in other ways she could not apologize for the way she is wired. She challenged me to think about how I was doing in "mom land" on a scale from 1 to 10. She pushed me to think about where I had development areas in my job as “mom” and pushed me to verbalize one of my most important goals - raising a strong woman. 

That conversation was very conflicting for me in many ways. On one hand, no mom wants to live with the regret of not being there enough for their kids. But some of us are not wired to stay home. So then how do we find that balance? Do we lean more on the strong partners and family that support us? Do we do nothing? Do we stop fighting? But what does that teach our daughters? And our sons? Just like in most equality fights, somebody has to pave the way for the other people behind them. Somebody has to do the hard work. Somebody has to make the sacrifices to push women forward in society. 

So how do we do it? Ultimately, we have to realize we cannot do everything (I feel like I just disappointed a whole generation of people with this sentence. :) ). BUT, we need to find ways to arrive at “mom not working state” in key moments while working. To make it easier for us, I spent some time while I was recovering to talk to some executive moms and gathered some tips that are easy to adapt for anyone. 

1. Quality over Quantity: The first step is understanding that it's not just about the amount of time spent with your children but the quality of that time. Prioritize creating meaningful connections and engaging in activities that foster strong bonds with the kids. Here are three easy things you can implement:  (A) Mother/Kid Trip. Each year I take my kids alone for a weekend away. Sometimes it’s nearby (Downtown Austin) and other times we fly somewhere (NYC, DC, or some other major US city) and just do things they love that we can do together. We have the best time talking, eating, and exploring the city. You can read about one of my excursions with my son in the blog Leadership Lessons from NYC with Sebastian. (B) Walk. Another working mom of three takes a daily walk with one kid each day. Right after dinner, she just rotates the kids and walks around the neighborhood to create that “mom not working state.” (C) Date Night. A working executive mom of two schedules date nights with her children one at a time to ensure they have programmatic time to connect and enjoy some downtime together doing an activity or just out to dinner.

   
   

2. Delegating and Outsourcing: Second, delegating non complex tasks at home can help free up time. Consider outsourcing household chores and  hiring childcare help for things that do not require a “mom” specifically to do it (e.g. taking kids to activities during the week, school drop off and/or pick up, folding clothes, making lunches, cutting fruit/veggie to prep for lunches, etc.).  Some women have found great success with virtual Executive Assistants to help do things like book summer camps, make doctor appointments, book family, travel, and other things that ultimately are administrative. You can easily interview and hire a virtual assistant from anywhere in the world one on upwork.com. Also, there could be things your partner can take on that again do not require you specifically doing it. Depending on the age of your kids, they can also do things from themselves (I make my 12 old daughter order her lunch and her brothers, organize her own birthday parties, and be responsible for reading the weekly school newsletter and calendaring things that are important to her in our family google calendar). You can convert the extra time into spending quality time with the kids.

   
   

3. Setting Boundaries: Third, setting clear boundaries between work and family time is crucial. Executive moms might avoid checking emails or taking work calls during designated family time to ensure they are fully present with their children.

   
   

4. Open Communication: Fourth, consider communicating openly with your children about your work commitments and involve them in decision-making processes when appropriate. This helps children understand the demands of their parent's job and fosters mutual respect and understanding. As an example, I asked my son what is more important to him: that I take him to soccer practice or attend his games as I cannot do both. He chose games; so I hired a neighborhood teenager to drive him to practice during the week. 

   
   

5. Self-Care: Lastly, it is super important that you maintain self-care to support your physical and mental well-being. By taking care of yourself, you will be better able to better manage the demands of both work and family life, ultimately allowing you to be more present and engaged with your children when you are together.

That sounds doable right? Why is this so important for us to achieve? Because we do not want the demands of motherhood to stop us from climbing the corporate ladder. Although women have made progress in arriving to executive roles, we are still far away from parity compared to our male peers. According to the Women in the Workplace 2023 report, the number of women in the C-suite has increased from 17 to 28 percent in the last nine years. Also, the representation of women at the vice president (33%) and senior vice president (28%) levels has also improved significantly. While that is great, it is a fragile statistic because progress has been slowing at the manager (3% growth) and director (4% growth) levels, which means that the middle pipeline is weak. Moreover, progress for women of color (6% of C suite and 7% of VP and SVP roles) is lagging behind their peers’ progress. At nearly every step in the pipeline, the representation of women of color falls relative to White women and men of the same race and ethnicity. 

We still have work to do ladies. We cannot give up. We have to find a way to harmonize our work and life, be there for our kids, and wear multiple hats. By maximizing our time, making the hard tradeoffs, prioritizing quality over quantity, having open communication with our kids about our work (and explaining why you cannot make x but will be at y), and taking care of ourselves we can get there. We can achieve the “mom not working” state in the right moments in our normal routines. 

I will not give up. My daughter will see her mother rock it as a mom, wife, and badass black, female, executive. 

Happy Mother’s Day! Keep Going. 

Jess