Woolf, a columnist for Working Mother
magazine, addresses the universal work/home harmony issue: how can a successful executive use her leadership skills to make her household happy, more efficient and stress-free? Bringing leadership skills to parenting might seem like a real survival strategy to an overwhelmed exec/mom, and the author draws similarities between managing a business and managing a family—including the old saws of setting goals, cultivating self-awareness, fostering a healthy culture, managing crises, navigating difficult relationships and balancing priorities. In applying the concept to a variety of family scenarios ranging from recalcitrant husbands through defiant toddlers and oppositional teens to never-ending household chores, she covers everything she believes a smart career-oriented woman needs to know to unleash her parenting potential. Using the keystones of “transformational leadership” (influenced by The Leadership Challenge
by Jim Kouzes), it might be possible for overworked executives to “feel less like overburdened servants and more like competent, effective family leaders.” All that is well and good, and reading this might help some women feel better about themselves, but in reality, a family is not a business, spouses are not executives, and children are not employees. While this may be a “mom development” book, its premise is slim and its contents stretched and repetitive. The more realistic question might be: how can parenting skills make better executives? (Feb.)
