When someone has a baby, the first thing everyone wants to know is whether it is a baby girl or baby boy. Apart from the curiosity of knowing the baby’s gender, why is it necessary at all? Why is a baby boy’s room blue and a girl’s room pink? Why do you give your baby girl a Barbie doll, why does she wear a dress, and how can you make a difference is this is something you don’t understand at all?

We live in a generation now where gender-neutral is becoming more open; however, we also live in an age where IVF sex selection is being implemented. Ironic isn’t it?

Gender is something that children begin to understand at the age of two or three. That too because of the things they see, the books they read, the toys they receive, their hair length and the behaviour they witness on the playground. 

Pick your words carefully

You can begin by changing the way you speak. Instead of saying a smart girl or healthy boy say, smart kid. Because when you keep repeating the gender in every sentence, you say about them, it just becomes impossible to think of themselves as anything different than their gender.

And at the same time, when your kid asks you anything related to sexism, always make sure that you listen to them. They might be kids, but this is the age that you start telling them about gender stereotypes.

Stop giving the toys much thought

The gadgets you give to your kids carve their choices. So instead of thinking of giving them a specific toy, maybe try something that encourages participation. Don’t think much about colour but make sure that they aren’t a particular blue or pink. Give them a choice. They will pick eventually what they like more.

What we learn until the age of seven is the reason how we act for the rest of our life. So, avoid labelling as much as you can. If you are someone that has undergone a procedure to be able to choose the gender of your baby, then you may not sympathise with any of these points, however, try to understand. 

Clear your misconceptions first

This practice about not imposing the gender is about letting kids explore all the opportunities instead of the ones that are meant for their gender. So be sure that whenever your kid witnesses something wrong about their gender, something that they needn’t know, you jump to their rescue. The whole point is to let them think above the barriers of the stereotype.

Let them interact with everyone

Let your kid play with everyone. Be it a girl, be it a boy. If your kid wants to play a game, then you should let them be. Who is going to tell them they can’t if you don’t say it. This kind of interactions builds the type of mentality where they stop thinking that they are better and worse than anyone because of gender. They should know from the beginning that what they do is all about their capabilities.

Support

Whenever your kid voices something, instead of lashing out about why he/she wants to play with a doll or ride a bike, hear them. If they won’t tell you how would you know that they need support. After all, your kid might get help from you, but other kids and people will say to him/her that the choice they are making is wrong for the gender they belong. And at times like this, you are the one to say to him/her that it is ok to pick whatever they like.

Your kid should be treated as an individual before you treat them as a girl or a boy. And introducing them to the purple rain (that is people like male nurses and chefs or female pilots) will make them understand that there are no walls to the things they can do as a person if their brain doesn’t create one.

Capable leadership undoubtedly has enormous importance in creating and maintaining a business to achieve sustainable results. The world today is complex and continuously changing, so the need for having a high-performance team with leadership skills is essential. Building leadership capability is extremely important for a growing company and especially for growing individuals within the company. It can be as detrimental as determining at times, how capable your company has the potential to be. This article is based on leadership capability itself and why it’s important to implement in the workplace.

Because these corporations within the U.S are spending approximately that much per year on leadership development programs, permanent change will occur only when an organisation’s infrastructure elicits, reinforces, and even demands desired leadership behaviours. Research states under 20 per cent of the knowledge gained from training transfers to the job. The opportunity and tasks are to translate the skills and knowledge into different practices that improve the company’s performance. 

The challenge and opportunity are to decipher facts and skills into practices that advance the organisational performance. It needs to be made aware that such guidelines are not meant for a quick fix in order to create a strong company leadership. The implementation will require thought and dialogue, along with hard work. All team members need to be committed and want to have a successful outcome; in order for them to want to grow and develop within a company, further training is a stepping stone.

Focus the leaders on a shared definition along with leadership paradigm

There are a few companies that have made an attempt to define the meaning of leadership clearly. In order to provide consistent and excellent leadership all across the organisation, every leader must be grounded with a shared understanding of what the leadership role is. This knowledge will form the foundation which will then build a great leadership team. And overall will improve the companies progress and result in higher conversions and profit. Having its absence will mean that when people perform personal paradigms that are often reactive, self-protective and traditional, which may or may not be consistent with the company you want to create.

There are lots of useful definitions and paradigms of leadership, at the end of the day everyone will have their own personal meaning for this. The content of those meanings is not as significant as selecting a description and standard that can be taught, understood, and embraced by all of the leaders within a given organisation. Such a shared definition includes such elements as:

Setting the example

We can preach as much as we want about how we want them to behave, but they are not going to do so if the leaders at the top are not doing it correctly and setting the example. Actions do speak louder than words do, so it isn’t what we say that informs people and how they should be behaving it how we act. If you want others to treat you with respect, then you need to be doing the same to them.

If you want the staff to be open and non-defensive, then you need to be non-defensive and open. It’s important that along with training; you build a strong foundation and great culture. This is so your team feel motivated and happy in the workplace. If employees feel more happy and motivated they will be more inclined to take part in leadership development training and activities, and they will overall want to grow. If you wish to empower the team and let others have more authority along with involvement, then you need to avoid micromanaging and allow others more power.