Sue Shellenbarger wrote a nice post about how women indirectly influence how their spouses parent a few days ago on The Juggle, the WSJ’s blog on juggling work and parenting. A study written up in Journal of Family Psychology found that the way a new mom reacts to her spouse’s parenting efforts has a huge impact on whether he is an engaged and participatory parent.
If she encourages him, sets aside time for him to hang with the new baby, and complements him in front of others, he’s more likely to stay engaged. If she rolls her eyes, mocks him, or talks him down to the baby (you know ‘daddy dressed you in a silly outfit, didn’t he’), he’s likely to back away from involvement.
As a new mom, I was totally insecure. One of the ways that I hid it was to pretend I knew what I was doing. Because the monkeys outnumbered me, I couldn’t pretend that I could do it alone. Mr. Daddy had to get involved early, which I think has been great for our relationship and the relationship that he has with the monkeys.
When I went back to work, I started traveling. Because Mr. Daddy was always home at night, there was another reason that he had to stay very involved with their care. Even in these circumstances, though, I could see that the more I tried to tell him what to do, or, even worse, ‘fix’ the mess he had made with their outfits, their diapers or their cribs, the more he would back off. I quickly learned that the only thing I’d get out of micro-managing was the opportunity to do it all myself. No thank you.
Managers and bosses can have the same effect on their employees. The boss who always re-writes her associates’ documents no matter how good they are will find, over time, that they always come to her in need of a rewrite. Any smart worker learns not to waste her time if the work is going to be ‘fixed’ anyway.
Many good leaders are conscious of this kind of overt over correction, and avoid doing it. What we might not always be conscious of are the indirect ways we teach those who work for/with us to be helpless — withcomments to other colleagues, expressive body language, not taking time to communicate properly or even not giving people enough time to get something right.
The result in the workplace is the same as the result in the home: lack of engagement and lack of participation. These subtle messages that you’re not doing a good job results in you not doing a good job, and often, not doing the job at all. Which works out well for the manager or the parent who wants to do it all herself. And is a good reminder for the rest of us to think about how we empower others.
