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Blink 3 of 8 - The 5 AM Club
by Robin Sharma
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Raising Leaders summary
Wendy Born
Using the principles of parenting at work to become a great leader and create great leaders
23 mins
Brief summary
'Raising Leaders' by Wendy Born is a guide for parents and educators on how to foster leadership qualities in children. It provides practical tools and strategies to help kids become confident, problem-solving, and empathetic leaders.
Table of Contents
Raising Leaders
Summary of 7 key ideas
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Key idea 1 of 7
Parenting and management share many of the same stresses.
It happens the same way every night. After a long, exhausting day, you crawl into bed to get some much-needed rest. As soon as you close your eyes, you’re out like a light. But it doesn’t last. Within an hour you hear your child crying in the next room. It’s time to get up and do some more parenting.
New parents find themselves in this situation all the time, and leadership expert Wendy Born was no different. After having her first child, she struggled to keep up with the challenges of raising a young one. She often felt lost, isolated, and overwhelmed.
The feeling was uncomfortable, but not completely new. After all, many novice managers feel the same way in the workplace.
The key message here is: Parenting and management share many of the same stresses.
Raising a child, especially in its early years, is no easy task. Children can be difficult, unpredictable, and temperamental. And any workplace manager knows that colleagues can share many of these traits. The only real difference is that parenting is more than a full-time job – once you clock in, you can never clock out. Given these twin pressures, it’s no wonder that so many people feel stressed out. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, nearly one in eight people regularly experience high levels of psychological distress.
However, both family life and the professional realm can also be fulfilling and rewarding. It’s just a matter of approaching them in the right way – that is, with lots of empathy and compassion. When the Harvard Business Review studied management styles at 84 companies, it found that CEOs with high levels of compassion outperformed their less kind peers by nearly 500 percent.
Cultivating compassion requires three forms of sight: insight, plain sight, and foresight. Insight is the ability to understand what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. Plain sight is the capacity to determine what actions and conditions are actually under your control. And foresight is the wisdom of knowing your long-term goals and the true purpose of your work.
You can begin nurturing these qualities by making the time for regular moments of quiet reflection. Try carving out 15 minutes a day to calmly consider your actions, your goals, and how you can align the two. You may find this practice will help you stay centered at work and at home. In the next blink, we’ll look at some more similarities between these two areas of life.
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What is Raising Leaders about?
Raising Leaders (2020) is a thoughtful primer on contemporary leadership. This guide lays out the surprising parallels between raising strong, independent children and cultivating successful, productive teams.
Raising Leaders Review
Raising Leaders (2021) is an insightful book that offers practical guidance on nurturing leadership qualities in children. Here are three reasons why this book stands out:
- It provides actionable strategies for parents and educators to help children develop essential leadership skills from an early age.
- With a combination of research-backed principles and relatable stories, it offers a compelling and relatable approach to raising future leaders.
- The book's emphasis on nurturing potential and fostering independence in children ensures that it is anything but boring, keeping readers engaged from start to finish.
Best quote from Raising Leaders
Leadership, like parenting, is lonely, hard and often thankless.
—Wendy Born
Who should read Raising Leaders?
- New parents seeking positive advice
- Business leaders preparing to take on a new role
- Anyone interested in raising the next generation of leaders
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Raising Leaders FAQs
What is the main message of Raising Leaders?
Raising Leaders teaches us how to raise confident and capable children who can become future leaders.
How long does it take to read Raising Leaders?
The reading time for Raising Leaders varies per person, but our Blinkist summary can be read in just 15 minutes.
Is Raising Leaders a good book? Is it worth reading?
Raising Leaders is worth reading as it provides practical insights and strategies for nurturing leadership skills in children.
Who is the author of Raising Leaders?
Wendy Born is the author of Raising Leaders.
What to read after Raising Leaders?
If you're wondering what to read next after Raising Leaders, here are some recommendations we suggest:
- 13 Things Mentally Strong Parents Don’t Do by Amy Morin
- Raising Critical Thinkers by Julie Bogart
- The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read (and Your Children Will Be Glad That You Did) by Philippa Perry
- Bringing Out the Best in People by Aubrey C. Daniels
- Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell
- The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown
- Stillness Is the Key by Ryan Holiday
- Lateral Thinking by Edward de Bono
- Bless This Mess by Molly Baskette and Ellen O’Donnell
- The Explosive Child by Ross W. Greene