Any time people engage in an important, responsible undertaking for another's welfare - whether a business, job, government matter or a family - there is a need for clear, competent leadership. The more serious the challenge, the greater the need for someone to direct everyone's efforts in an inspiring, encouraging way towards the ultimate goal. To this end, the real mission for parents is to raise their children towards responsible adulthood. All the dynamics of family life lead to the question of what kind of men and women the children will grow to be. No challenge is more important than this, and so great parents emerge in family life as real leaders.
How do fathers and mothers lead their children effectively? To form a picture of parental leadership, let us look at the characteristics of leaders and see how parents fit the profile of leadership in family life.
Leaders are moved by a distant vision, and they thus win people's respect. A broad statement that you will probably agree with is that in business and professional life, and in affairs of state, our most respected leaders are those who look farthest toward the future and foresee oncoming perils and opportunities. Respected leadership and strategic foresight go hand in hand. The farther and clearer the vision, the greater the respect. It seems that this dynamic works in successful families, too. Parents - all kinds with different temperaments - succeed in family life through their confident leadership.
Successful parents base their confidence in knowing they have this sacred mission to carry out with their children. They see themselves raising adults, not children. They have been called by God to carry out a job, and that holy task is this: to lead their children - with daily sacrificial effort - to grow into confident, responsible, considerate, generous men and women who are committed to live by Christian principles all their lives, no matter what the cost. Being conscious of this mysterious and sacred mission, holding it always before their eyes, is what turns these parents into great men and women themselves, real heroes to their children, and makes their family life together a great, rollicking, beautiful adventure.
Effective parent leaders look at their children and picture them 20 years from now, as grown men and women with job and family responsibilities of their own. They seem to understand a truth of life: children will tend to grow up to our expectations or down to them. So, these parent leaders set high ideals for their children's later lives. They think of their children's future along these lines:
Any time people engage in an important, responsible undertaking for another's welfare - whether a business, job, government matter or a family - there is a need for clear, competent leadership. The more serious the challenge, the greater the need for someone to direct everyone's efforts in an inspiring, encouraging way towards the ultimate goal. To this end, the real mission for parents is to raise their children towards responsible adulthood. All the dynamics of family life lead to the question of what kind of men and women the children will grow to be. No challenge is more important than this, and so great parents emerge in family life as real leaders. How do fathers and mothers lead their children effectively? To form a picture of parental leadership, let us look at the characteristics of leaders and see how parents fit the profile of leadership in family life.
Parent leaders, too, understand the consequences of neglect. They know they have job to do - a change to effect - in the minds and hearts of their growing children. And they draw courage to act from foreseeing what awful things could happen to their children if that job remains undone, if their children retain the flaws and selfishness of childhood into adult life. For instance: if our children remain self-centred - 'Me first!' - they will neglect or mistreat others, and their marriages and careers will fly apart.
(Excerpted from James Stenson, Prism. Reprinted with permission from the author.)
International Federation for Family Development (IFFD) is an international organisation focused on developing rich, resilient and happy families. To this end, IFFD organises conferences and workshops and produces a number of publications across five continents. IFFD has been granted consultative status within the United Nations and is based in Spain.