And the best manager award goes to....

"Mother"

Mother - The Best Manager…

Have you seen or observed a mother handling a house-hold? Not only in these recent years where most mothers are also ‘working’ in offices/schools but ever since time unknown. In fact most management principles would have cropped up from observing such mothers. We would have heard this concept so many times. But I thought I should give it my share.

What are the basic expectations of a good manager? Some of my friends tease me for using an oxy-moron here. But I beg to differ! There are of course very good managers on this earth. Coming back to the point…so what makes a manager good? Efficient planning, Proper scheduling, Foreseeing risks, Preparing workable mitigation plans for those risks, being pragmatic in approach and style, quick decision-making and owning up the decisions made, gluing the team that works under him, understanding each team member’s strengths and weaknesses and playing to that, rewarding them in public and reprimanding in private, understanding business needs, realizing the operating margin at the targeted level, keeping the customers happy, the management proud and the teams wanting and deserved!

Now let us see how many of these qualities we can naturally derive from most of our mothers (working or unemployed, educated or uneducated). First, she is the undoubted Finance Minister in the house. She carefully plans for the budget of the family, keeping the income in mind. For turbulent times she also sets apart an amount in reserves. In this context, she has to collectively work with her husband to make the savings and mitigate any cash-crunches for the family.

Not only for the future that will come in years/months, she deftly plans every day. Her chores are pretty mundane in one sense but the challenge is to handle the curves that life throws at her at the dawn of every day. When does this girl, who was until marriage and child-birth was only a playful lass, mature into a “woman”? Is it when she has to be managing her own household or is it when she mothers her first kid? This multi-tasking ability of a woman which really gets showcased especially only after she has her own family seems like an innate thing in every woman.

Her sense of planning/scheduling the day is just amazing. She knows what she has to prepare in the kitchen and makes all prior arrangements. Once done, she immediately starts attending to the other cleaning/washing activities. Even working mothers will have to do all this either by themselves or with the help of a domestic servant. The onus on the woman is much more in these cases as she has to make sure work is done on time and in the right way.

Whenever there is a rift/tension in the family, whether it is a joint family or a nuclear one, she acts as an ambassador and makes every effort to ensure that the family gets back to its harmonious state again. She has to be the glue in the family binding the members together.
In times of depression and despair, she ends up deciding for the family. She acts as the captain of a ship and steers the family with so much will and grit. This unique ability of women sometimes makes one wonder if she is really a weaker sex!

If the in-laws can be called customers, she listens to their needs and caters to them. So also, she makes her “management” proud by bringing them good-will and great reputation. Here parents of the woman could be compared to the “management”. And finally, the team, including her husband, is her family! Of course, it is for them that she performs these superb feats!

Is it now wrong to say that mothers are indeed the best of managers?