How To Help Your Daughter Embrace Leadership Today

If you’ve ever watched a behind the scenes story on a leader you admire, you’ll likely discover that she wasn’t born with some special leadership gene. Instead, she embraced leadership at a young age even though she might not have fully understood that’s what she was doing. Along the way, she picked up skills that set her apart from her peers and became the building blocks that propelled her to the top of her professional career.  Since we all want to help our daughter start her leadership journey today, here are 3 building blocks you can intentionally work on together: 

Communication: Good communication is capital our girls can’t afford to live without. No matter what age  your daughter happens to be, speak clearly to her, ask her questions that she needs to answer with more than a “yes” or “no”, and teach her to think before she speaks. One communication exercise you can both benefit from is asking her a question and having her reframe your question within her answer. For example, you might say, “What book would you like to read before bed?” Your daughter would say, “The book I want to read before bed is Romona the Brave.”   She will think this is a fun game, but in actuality you will be teaching her to listen and the power of her well placed words. 

Education: Learning is not optional. Our daughters do not get to choose IF they will go to school. But one quality all leaders possess is valuing education. Teach your daughter at a young age to love learning. Is she curious about something? Help her research it or find a documentary she can watch. Take her to the library and let her pick the books she wants to read. Allow her to sign up for her own library card and check out the books herself. She may not love every subject in school, but a girl who loves to learn will eventually find her passion and she will have the ability to find and gain knowledge at an advanced level. 

Kindness: Every leader knows that they do not make it to the top on their own. They work with hundreds, if not thousands, of people throughout their career. When our girls embrace kindness they learn to value other people. As they value people they will develop into leaders other people want to follow.  

As you seek to cultivate your daughter’s leadership potential, these building blocks will non only be foundational, but grow with her through the years.Teach her to embrace leadership now no matter what age she is. Grab a block and start building today.