“When men step up and work differently ... it says you can be a serious player at work and an engaged dad.
"That role modelling, that sharing of yourself, your personal experience, your personal challenges are so important and it's what I call courageous leadership,” said Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Liz Broderick, in the Sydney Morning Herald.
Broderick was inferring that men should leave work loudly.
“How are the Ninjas travelling?” mainland colleagues enquire, aware the mighty warriors are my children’s soccer team. They regularly check on progress, and I willingly elaborate with pride and focus.
At 4.30pm on a Thursday, I volunteer as a coach during the season; a privilege understood and supported by my employer. Although, at times, the home office calls me back after training.
I am fortunate.
To be honest, until recently, I never achieved work-life balance. It wasn’t a problem early in my career as education was our passion and our hobby as much as our job. The thirst to learn more was unquenchable – we relished endless hours of thought and discussion.
However, when children arrived, I strived to find balance. Alas, my head was too full of the comings and goings of professional life to ever achieve the discipline required.
Regrets?
Perhaps.
However, dwelling on the past achieves very little. Learning from the past achieves plenty.
The Property Council of Australia, my current employer, values diversity and family. For the first time in my professional career, I think as much about home as I do work.
Nonetheless, accountability via negotiated key performance indicators, which comprise challenging targets stretching each year at CPI plus, ensures the leadership required is always delivered.
Yet, I feel more productive and balanced than ever. Some days I awake to check the numbers, showcased via a sophisticated online tool, whilst also checking the weather to determine if it’s a good drying day.
Once upon a time, my calendar dictated routines, behaviour and family. From high stakes meetings and complex decision-making processes to haircuts (doesn’t feature as much nowadays) and “baby-sitting”, my life was organised into a series of minutes rather than days. A day off was not. It was a collection of brief moments ignoring Apple devices, feeling guilty and passing time pining, utterly compelled to return early next day, making-up for absence.
Propel forward four years and my calendar is still dominated by work, often travelling to the capital, but there is a far more hands-on, focussed role in caring for our growing youngsters that doesn’t have to be diarised.
The change has been slow. I am no saint! There are times when I fail and resort to old patterns of behaviour.
In sharing my story, I hope it encourages management to lead modern workplaces which foster and support women to thrive personally and professionally through disrupting traditionalism. Further, and from my experience, ensuring female colleagues on parental leave remain engaged and connected, not imposed upon, is crucial.
As I began a professional career, the thought of anyone working flexibly from home was dismissed as an environment that would never be accepted. The majority role-modelled traditional views with providing for the family through working long hours, chained to the desk - held in high regard.
In stark contrast, women were told to, “consider their priorities”. The result: jackets permanently draped on office chairs, feigned illness of loved ones, and secretive eyes down exit strategies aimed at confusing less than sympathetic bosses.
We must be better.
Technology has made flexible patterns of work more achievable, and there are advantages to working online; delivering connectivity, collegiality, and overcoming travel, separation and distance.
Darwin, Canberra or Perth can be seamlessly connected with a ubiquitous program.
In politics, the ability to chair departmental meetings remotely should be used more widely. The result, families spending more time together, and North and North West cabinet politicians in their electorates far more often, rather than weekly tuition relearning each camber of the Midland Highway.
For behaviour to change, men must be courageous and negotiate time to perform roles my parent’s generation considered the domain of females. Pick-up the kids, coach their team, participate in excursions, plan the menu, separate the colours!
“Don’t put the washing on the line during the colder months, when showers are predicted, otherwise you’ll be hanging it twice,” I recently offered my wife, and partner of 23 years.
“Seriously, you’ve only just worked that out!” Katie retorted with genuine amazement.
"That role modelling, that sharing of yourself, your personal experience, your personal challenges are so important and it's what I call courageous leadership,” said Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Liz Broderick, in the Sydney Morning Herald.
Broderick was inferring that men should leave work loudly.
“How are the Ninjas travelling?” mainland colleagues enquire, aware the mighty warriors are my children’s soccer team. They regularly check on progress, and I willingly elaborate with pride and focus.
At 4.30pm on a Thursday, I volunteer as a coach during the season; a privilege understood and supported by my employer. Although, at times, the home office calls me back after training.
I am fortunate.
To be honest, until recently, I never achieved work-life balance. It wasn’t a problem early in my career as education was our passion and our hobby as much as our job. The thirst to learn more was unquenchable – we relished endless hours of thought and discussion.
However, when children arrived, I strived to find balance. Alas, my head was too full of the comings and goings of professional life to ever achieve the discipline required.
Regrets?
Perhaps.
However, dwelling on the past achieves very little. Learning from the past achieves plenty.
The Property Council of Australia, my current employer, values diversity and family. For the first time in my professional career, I think as much about home as I do work.
Nonetheless, accountability via negotiated key performance indicators, which comprise challenging targets stretching each year at CPI plus, ensures the leadership required is always delivered.
Yet, I feel more productive and balanced than ever. Some days I awake to check the numbers, showcased via a sophisticated online tool, whilst also checking the weather to determine if it’s a good drying day.
Once upon a time, my calendar dictated routines, behaviour and family. From high stakes meetings and complex decision-making processes to haircuts (doesn’t feature as much nowadays) and “baby-sitting”, my life was organised into a series of minutes rather than days. A day off was not. It was a collection of brief moments ignoring Apple devices, feeling guilty and passing time pining, utterly compelled to return early next day, making-up for absence.
Propel forward four years and my calendar is still dominated by work, often travelling to the capital, but there is a far more hands-on, focussed role in caring for our growing youngsters that doesn’t have to be diarised.
The change has been slow. I am no saint! There are times when I fail and resort to old patterns of behaviour.
In sharing my story, I hope it encourages management to lead modern workplaces which foster and support women to thrive personally and professionally through disrupting traditionalism. Further, and from my experience, ensuring female colleagues on parental leave remain engaged and connected, not imposed upon, is crucial.
As I began a professional career, the thought of anyone working flexibly from home was dismissed as an environment that would never be accepted. The majority role-modelled traditional views with providing for the family through working long hours, chained to the desk - held in high regard.
In stark contrast, women were told to, “consider their priorities”. The result: jackets permanently draped on office chairs, feigned illness of loved ones, and secretive eyes down exit strategies aimed at confusing less than sympathetic bosses.
We must be better.
Technology has made flexible patterns of work more achievable, and there are advantages to working online; delivering connectivity, collegiality, and overcoming travel, separation and distance.
Darwin, Canberra or Perth can be seamlessly connected with a ubiquitous program.
In politics, the ability to chair departmental meetings remotely should be used more widely. The result, families spending more time together, and North and North West cabinet politicians in their electorates far more often, rather than weekly tuition relearning each camber of the Midland Highway.
For behaviour to change, men must be courageous and negotiate time to perform roles my parent’s generation considered the domain of females. Pick-up the kids, coach their team, participate in excursions, plan the menu, separate the colours!
“Don’t put the washing on the line during the colder months, when showers are predicted, otherwise you’ll be hanging it twice,” I recently offered my wife, and partner of 23 years.
“Seriously, you’ve only just worked that out!” Katie retorted with genuine amazement.
Comments
Post a Comment