“Being powerful means helping someone else find their voice.”
POWER. What comes to mind when you think of being in power? Being in control, in charge, strong – flexing your muscle, having it ALL. That sounds like power, right? Power is having the ability to orchestrate the results you want in a given situation; it is having the wherewithal to delegate and to make decisions that will largely affect others.
WRONG!!! Power is leadership, and how your leadership can impact those led by you! It is using your position and resources to benefit others, in a positive light! Power is using your leadership to inspire and create more leaders. “Lifting as we Climb”, a mantra coined by the National Association of Black Accountants, is what having power is all about.
As parents we flex our “power” a lot, justifying decisions because “I’m the mom (or dad)”, claiming that every decision we make, is the best. Children do need parental authority, to understand who’s in charge, and to maintain order. The power we have to influence our children is a huge responsibility that we inherent as parents, and we must be very careful to not allow outside factors to spill over into how we exercise it at home.
Before leaving my 9-5, I would work all day, and it greatly impacted my attitude, my patience, and my attentiveness to my daughter. I’d get her in from school, give her dinner and a bath, we’d go over some lessons, and then I’d be back to work. As we know, kids will call your name ALL day! I found myself getting impatient and working very hard not to show her. I didn’t want to become the parent who worked so much and forgot about their child. I also didn’t want to allow work to affect the way I reprimanded her. These are things I began to pray about, and when I knew I needed to transition out of work.
As parents, we are supposed to make decisions that our child(ren) are incapable of making and to set appropriate limits. However, these things can be done without the use of threats, blame, and severe punishment. Every child is different and requires different things from their parent. I’d like to challenge myself, and my readers to be conscious of how we exercise our power over our children, and even in the workplace. Power used to uplift and promote growth is healthy for the parent-child relationship, as well as positive working environment.