Advice for Female Leaders on Career Acceleration, Setting Work Boundaries and Accepting Help  

As a working parent who is very involved in my three daughters’ lives, I am frequently asked, “How do you juggle being a mom and an executive at your company? How are you succeeding at both?” After fielding this question numerous times, I’ve distilled my advice to working parents who want to make an impact both in their work and home lives. And here’s how it goes:

Set your Boundaries Early On

• Whatever your level is at your company, set boundaries for what works for you. Be open about it and leverage working asynchronously, if needed, to help you manage.
• Conversely, be conscious of overextending yourself in your outside commitments, since you can easily get sucked into more volunteer opportunities as you become more active in your children’s school or other organizations.

Bottom line: Studies (including this one from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis), show that working parents are actually more productive, so there’s data to prove that you can still be an A-player while setting boundaries around work and home life.

Take “Adult Timeouts”
When you’re caught in the grind of dropping off kids, running a board meeting, going back home and helping with homework, organizing soccer practice pickups, etc., you can find yourself doing so much back and forth that you tire yourself out — and then you’re not happy. You need to dedicate time to building yourself and commit to alone time in order to stay balanced. We spend so much time making time for others, we have to make time for ourselves. It feels as though everyone is taking turns. When is it going to be your turn?

Sometimes all we need is an “adult timeout” which may look like taking an extra long route on the way to work because that extra fifteen minutes with the windows rolled down and sunroof open allows you to reset and transition from parent role to work role. You need that time to decompress. Or it’s that fifteen minute to walk to get a coffee in the middle of a hectic day. It doesn’t need to be a huge commitment like a daily exercise class (although those are great, too). The point is that it’s important to fit in micro-moments and actions that allow you to re-energize, reset and take a look at something in a different way so you’re not draining yourself constantly.

Find What Gives You Energy
In my Hipower network (a great, supportive forum for working women), we learned about the 5 dynamics that describe how people approach an activity with varying amounts of energy. It’s not about your personality; it’s about what gives you energy and what drains you.

The main point is this: whatever allows you to stay in that productive energy process determines how you are able to work with other people. Understanding your energy pattern helps you know when to walk away and give yourself a timeout, or when you’re in your flow and rockin’ your mojo. Knowing yourself well and what gives you that energy also helps you figure out what kind of support system you need (or the other side of the coin: what kind, and how much, “alone time” is best for you. For some people, they just need to step back into solitude to recharge and come roaring back).

Hold your Partner Accountable
This is key. You’ve got to hold your partner accountable. In many cases, roles may switch over the course of your relationship. For example, if a woman gave her husband a chance to grow in his career, it may be her turn later on. Negotiate this with your partner to ensure you’re each meeting each other’s needs and expectations around family and work.  Set boundaries at home as you do at work.

Keep Accelerating 
It sounds counterintuitive, but the more you accelerate, the more you’re able to set boundaries. Why? Because the more you progress in your career, the better your chances of being in a position of leadership where you set the example, the culture, and the boundaries that allow you to do what you need to do to take care of yourself at work and home.

It can be tempting to offramp because of a partner. I have seen women offramp because their partners’ careers took off, so they made a decision that it would now be the husband’s role to be the financial provider. Now that their children are older, these women are trying to get back into the workforce, and it’s harder because they face the gap of having lost momentum or years of experience, and find it challenging to rebuild their network.

An example: I had a friend who was preparing for a baby and took a lower job than she was qualified for because she thought it’d be easier, less demanding, and would provide more time for her to spend with her child. It turned out to be the opposite (i.e. more psychologically stressful), because in this role she wasn’t in a position to set positions and expectations. Formerly, she had been on a high-achievement trajectory, but now was back in an individual contributor role that she could do in her sleep. She became frustrated because she knew there was a better way to do things, and that there was so much more she could do.

The misconception is that the higher up you go, the harder your job becomes. While the job may be harder in a different way, you’re more in control when you’re the one setting the rules. The more that you’re able to dedicate towards growing your career earlier on, the sooner you’re able to reap the perks/rewards of that investment in your career.

Find your Support Network and Accept their Help
For the longest time, I wouldn’t let someone else pick up my kids from school or help me with household errands. It had to be me. But…as life gets busier at home and at work, you get to a point where you need to rely on your community and let things go. The more you welcome that into your life, the more that you create a network of people who become an extension of you —  and you can reciprocate for others, which can also be fulfilling.

Also, learning to accept help from others, especially if they offer it, is important for your children to see. While you’re juggling home and career, your children are seeing how you manage and cope with the vicissitudes of life. When they see you trusting others, they too start thinking about their own network of trusted friends and family to lean on, and for whom (they now realize) they can provide support. So find a network of people who can sustain you, and whom you can sustain. Then commit to championing each other and being there for each other along the journey.