The Hardest Leadership Transition I've Made

I spend a lot of time coaching executives on how to stop being the smartest person in the room. How to trust the people they've developed. How to lead through influence instead of authority. I got pretty good at it. Then my kids became adults, and I had to learn it all again from scratch (yeah, I'm slow too sometimes).

The skills that make you a good parent when your kids are young, protection, correction, direction are exactly the ones that stop working when they become adults. The instinct doesn't go away just because the situation changed. You still see the risk. You still know the better path (or you think you do). But the moment you say it uninvited, you're not being a good parent. You're just being the loudest person in the room. I've made that mistake, and I've seen what it costs.

The transition isn't about going silent. It's about shifting the currency. When your kids are young, the currency is authority. When they're adults, the currency is trust. You build it the same way you build it with a senior leader: be curious before being directive, show up without an agenda, and let them come to their own conclusions on a timeline that isn't yours. It's not easy, and it's patient work, something that we've often conditioned ourselves not to lean into with our kids when they were young.

The parallel to leadership isn't accidental. The executives who struggle most with developing their teams are usually the ones who can't let go of being the person with the answer. The ones who build the strongest teams are the ones who got comfortable asking the question instead. Parenting adult kids is the same muscle. Most of us just didn't realize we'd need it at home too.