9 scientific ways being a father affects your success

Involved dads often develop skills and traits that make them better employees

Sebastiaan ter Burg/Flickr

When researchers out of Clark University and the Center for Creative Leadership in Greensboro, North Carolina, studied how managers’ commitments to children affected their work performance, they concluded that being a committed parent can actually improve a manager’s performance because child-rearing develops skills that are also useful at work.

The researchers suggest that raising a family helps develop skills like negotiating, compromising, conflict resolution, patience, and multitasking, and that family experiences provide managers with positive feelings that carry over to the workplace and facilitate performance.

Ann Crittenden, author of “If You’ve Raised Kids, You Can Manage Anything,” would seem to agree. As she writes in her book, “Anyone who has learned how to comfort a troublesome toddler, soothe the feelings of a sullen teenager, or manage the complex challenges of a fractious household can just as readily smooth the boss’s ruffled feathers, handle crises, juggle several urgent matters at once, motivate the team, and survive the most Byzantine office intrigues.”