When people hear the word “leadership,” most default to thinking about the workplace—about managing teams, setting direction, and making high-stakes decisions, but that view is incomplete. Leadership isn’t just a professional skill—it’s a human one. At its core, leadership is about how we influence and care for others. And there’s no arena in life more critical, or more challenging, for leadership than parenting.
So, what is parenting leadership?
Parent leadership is the application of leadership principles—like ownership, relationship, detachment, and humility—within the most personal, emotionally charged team we’ll ever lead: our families.
It’s leadership in its rawest form.
Leadership Is Who You Are, Not Just What You Do
For years, I compartmentalized my approach to leadership. I acted like what I thought a leader should look like at work, but the dad at home was different. I was wrong.
Leadership is not a costume you put on when you walk into the office and take off when you get home. If you see it that way, others – your kids, your team – will pick up on the inconsistency, it will be more tiring for you, and you won’t be as effective as you could be. True leadership flows from who you are. If you can’t lead well at home, it’s unlikely you’re leading as well as you think elsewhere.
Discipline, Freedom, and the Hardest Job in the World
When I first became a parent, I thought parenting was about enforcing rules and imposing discipline in order to help my kids be successful. It was an approach rooted in love, and it worked…until it didn’t.
What I realized, after far too many battles with my strong-willed children, is that true discipline is not imposed – it’s chosen. That real leadership isn’t about control – it’s about creating the environment where others are empowered and trusted to make decisions. That’s as true in the home as it is in combat or in business. My job wasn’t to control my kids—it was to lead them.
And that meant shifting from enforcing rules to teaching ownership.
Parenting Through Leadership, Not Control
Parent leadership is about building trust. About modeling the behaviors we want our children to adopt. About showing humility when we screw up, and owning our mistakes—even (especially) when it would be easier to blame the “phase they’re in.”
We don’t have to be perfect. We just have to be honest. The greatest gift we can give our kids isn’t control – it’s ownership. Ownership of their decisions. Ownership of their responses. Ownership of their lives. And the only way they’ll learn that is by watching us live it. When we take ownership of our mistakes, our emotions, our choices, we teach them to do the same. That’s how they build confidence. That’s how they develop the internal strength to navigate life with clarity and courage.
Parent Leadership Is a Skill—And It Can Be Learned
Is there parent leadership training?
There is now.
At Echelon Front, we’ve seen firsthand how the same principles that transform companies and military units can transform families. Extreme Ownership isn’t just for boardrooms and battlefields. It’s for breakfast tables and bedtime routines. It’s for the hard conversations with a teenager, the calm response in a toddler’s meltdown, and the daily decision to lead by example when no one is watching.
Parent leadership can be learned. It’s not easy. But it’s worth it.
Lead with Love and Ownership
To every parent, especially the mothers out there leading with strength, sacrifice, and relentless love—thank you. Your leadership shapes lives in ways that deeply matter.
At the end of the day, we all want our kids to grow into strong, courageous, resilient, and independent people. But those traits don’t magically appear when they leave home—they’re built in the everyday moments. In how we respond to setbacks. In the way we model ownership. In the conversations we have after a hard day or a tough decision. That means parenting them in a way that equips them with the tools to face life head-on, not by protecting them from every challenge, but by walking alongside them, letting them take ownership, and letting them lead.
That’s how we raise future leaders.
