Fast Company Daily The leadership skills you learn from raising kids
Nov 18, 2025
Jessica Weiland, an executive coach and founder of A Cup of Ambition, shares valuable insights linking parenting and leadership. She discusses the importance of emotional steadiness, advocating for clarity in communication to reduce stress. Weiland emphasizes that boundaries promote care and shared responsibility, while repairing mistakes fosters trust. She highlights the necessity of providing autonomy to build competence and asserts that purpose is found in everyday actions. Ultimately, her advice is to remain steady, human, and intentional in leadership.
AI Snips
Chapters
Transcript
Episode notes
Kitchen Moment Mirrors Executive Coaching
- Jessica Weiland contrasts coaching a senior executive with calming a child in a mismatched costume to show similar leadership demands.
- She uses this everyday family moment to illustrate shared internal skills across parenting and leadership.
Same Internal Architecture For Both Roles
- Parenting and leadership draw on the same internal architecture: influence without force, emotional regulation, and creating clarity.
- Weiland argues the habits that sustain parenting also strengthen leadership in organizations.
Emotional Steadiness Is Composure
- Emotional steadiness is the capacity to tolerate emotion without reacting impulsively.
- Practicing composure enables leaders to navigate ambiguity instead of defaulting to control or avoidance.