How to lead your partner in the dance

You lead at work, but at home you’re often at a loss when it comes to leading your partner. Why is that? And how can you lead better at home?

Identify yourself as a leader.

An essential part of confident leadership is to identify yourself as a leader. Go ahead and say it:

“I am a leader. I want to lead my partner.”

And yes — that may feel silly. But until you acknowledge your desire to lead at home, you will not devote the time and energy toward developing that leadership.

You may not realize it, but you listen to yourself. If you say to yourself, “I’m a leader,” then you will naturally move more in the direction of leadership.

If, on the other hand, you remain silent on the matter of leadership at home, or say to yourself, “It doesn’t matter what I do, my partner won’t listen to me anyway,” then you will not build your confidence for leading at home, or, at best, your success will come much more slowly.

Practice.

Confidence comes with repetition. If you want to lead at home, put in some time and effort into learning what great leadership is, and then practice what you learn.

For example: If you are already leading at work and having some success there, think about what is working well there and make the transfer to applying what works well at work, at home.

Remember:

“There is no glory in practice. But without practice, there is no glory.”

Meaning: Get in there and practice. Not everything you try is going to work. Some things will work, though. Learn from your mistakes and your successes alike, and keep going if you want to get better.

Practice what?

This is a good place to practice your ABCs. You may remember the steps are:

• Accept
• Build
• Connect

Start with Accept. Let’s say your partner is mostly a pretty wonderful person, but is insecure. Which might mean that they try to control everything, killing your leadeship vibe, perhaps unintentionally.

Continue with Build. The question becomes, based on these characteristics of your partner, “How do I lead this wonderful, insecure person who challenges me at every turn?” And then you do some thinking, and perhaps some writing (which I highly recommend). And from that thinking and writing, you come up with something you want to try. Let’s say, in this case, you decide you want to offer a foot rub after work. Your partner loves foot rubs almost any time!

Connect. Carry through with your plan, and see where it goes. The reason you may have decided to take this particular approach with your partner is because they get to give up control in a way that is non-threatening. You might be surprised how effective something as a simple foot rub can be.

What’s the point?

The point is, leaders go first. Your job as leader is to create a culture in which the person you are leading (your partner in this case) feels safe. Until you create a safe place for your partner, you will be wasting your time trying to lead. Once you develop trust, everything will be easier.

The takeaway:

Lead your partner by claiming your role as leader, then practicing leadership to thoughtfully develop a culture of trust.

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I can help you lead your partner.