With a quizzical look and a slightly demanding tone, my 14 year-old daughter asked, “Why don’t you work?” I replied, “I do.”

“No, you don’t. All my friends’ mums go to work and you just stay at home.”

That was 15 years ago.

I remembered feeling defensive, hurt, and vulnerable.

Defensive because I was not like most mothers and needed to justify myself (the feminist movement was making its mark felt in every corner of the world). Hurt that my daughter could not appreciate what I had given up to become a stay home mum. Vulnerable because I felt she was exposing my inner feelings of uselessness, which arose from time to time, posing a threat to my decision to be a stay home mum.

But I wasn’t always a stay home mom.

I graduated from university and immediately embarked on my professional career as an economist. Not long after that, my life took a turn and I was approached by my pastor to become his secretary. My immediate thought was, “Hey, I am a graduate and you just asked me to do some clerical, administrative work in an office that is not quite an office. Anyway I hear the pay is lousy!”

Following some serious personal reflection, prayer, and conversation with my husband, he agreed to support me if I decided to take up this offer. By a divine sleight of hand, I agreed to become the secretary of my church with a small salary. The work was not hard or even intellectually demanding but the lessons of life learned during this opportune time would prove to be invaluable for pastoral leadership.

It was no small feat. The courage to take a risk and make some drastic life changes meant that my entire professional life might be jeopardized. On reflection, it took some deep reservoirs of courage to turn a promising career into something “lesser.” I did not feel particularly courageous at the time. However, it did involve going against the very fabric of everything I had been taught to believe in and work for – a high paying professional career with everyone marveling at my success and doing my parents proud.

Courage is the raw material that propels you into the unknown. Though empowering, it has a tinge of the fear factor of making a mistake and looking like a fool. Courage is exhilarating because it helps create a pathway of meaningful activity, giving a sense of confidence for the future. Courage is adventurous. It is an upward momentum of vibrancy and energy. Courage takes us on a journey!

I discovered that strength is found in courage. There is a mysterious link between courage and strength. They co-exist and are never far from each other. They are like a pair of Siamese twins. Courage gave me the strength to tackle the pressures of a new life decision, making numerous adjustments along the way and the strength to continue on the journey.

Courage would need to be drawn on again when we decided to start a family. Both my husband and I felt that it would be better for me to stop work and stay home with the children. This was a conscious decision on both of our parts to nurture the children ourselves with me as the primary carer. Once again, I had to find the courage to hang up my working gloves and adjust to being a stay home mum. “What am I going to be doing with all that spare time?” I thought naively. With mixed feelings, the decision was firmly made. By a strange twist of divine design, I found that it was much easier to give up the secretarial job than I had anticipated simply because my husband had a transfer to another academic position in another city.

Yet, I was about to learn another sustaining lesson in life. In the first trimester of my pregnancy, I had to face the fact that I had been exposed to German measles while teaching in Children’s Church against which I had no inoculation or immunity. We made a visit to the doctor and was told very emphatically that I had to undergo an abortion because the child that I was carrying was certain to be born deformed. I realized that the doctor had to give me the worst possible news in order to get me to accept some facts about this contagious disease.

My Christian belief system does not allow me to take the life that is forming in my womb and I had to learn to accept the possibility of raising a deformed child. I had six months to do that. Again, I needed courage and strength to accept and live with this dire possibility. My courage was strengthened when, in prayer, the Lord distinctly said that children are a gift from the Lord (Ps 127:3). Surely the Lord will not give me a “broken” gift, I reasoned.

Six months passed and a beautiful little baby boy was laid in my arms. I thought he was the most perfect little baby with tiny fingers and a cute little nose. I was immediately glad that I had trusted in my spiritual teaching. This child was about to teach me another important lesson in life – servanthood.

Servanthood is motherhood. I was serving day and night for he was a fidgety child. He was not sleeping like the textbook said he should. He was not feeding like the magazine articles I read said he would. He was consistently whining and the nursing sister was anxious about his weight. On top of that, I had the misfortune of being questioned by her about the dark mark on his back (which eventually faded away) as if I had abused my child! I was not sleeping well and I was sick. I was not producing the milk like I should have (resentfully I would declare that I was not a cow!). It was not a good beginning to motherhood. There was a lot of routine to follow and my independence was firmly but surely curtailed. I seriously wanted to get back to my size six dresses!

I learned to serve and submit to this little six pounder. What a great lesson in leadership! Leadership is about serving others to make a better and complete life. Not every textbook will tell you this. It takes time, patience, dedication, forfeiting of personal rights, love, and charity. Slowly my life was changing and courageously I was taking it by the horns and wrestling with it. Service became my second name followed by self sacrifice. There are many similarities between motherhood and leadership.

Women in leadership is a serious matter. It is much more than having a position. It is also about being in that position. The marks of good leadership remain in the minds of those who are fortunate enough to serve under you. Some remarks that I have heard over the years when talking about good and lasting leadership include:

“She was there when I needed her.”

“She is interested in me, not just what I do.”

“She is open.”

“I am not scared to talk with her.”

“She is very easy to talk with. No airs.”

These remarks remind me of what motherhood is: being available and approachable to our children. This is conducive for the formation of strong and lasting family relationships. Likewise, leadership that is based on open and honest relationships between each other often last the mile. Servant leadership appeals to the hearts of many because it is usually not self serving but is open, honest, and downplays the importance of position and power as right as they might be in their own context.

Remarkably, there are other similarities between motherhood and leadership. The demands on your time are not always scheduled the way you would like them to be. It is never a nine to five work schedule. Leaders, as mothers, are available at all times when needed. This is especially so when one is nurturing and growing new leaders. In the formative years of a child’s growth, the nurturing of mothers is crucial. This gives the child a secure and safe environment in which to learn and to grow. Likewise, leaders will be able to grow much faster when the trainer is available and ready to help.

A good mother is one who can discipline and correct effectively without destroying the spirit of the child. Harsh discipline can produce unhealthy fear and rejection in a child. Lack of discipline can produce rebelliousness and children with no personal boundaries. Good leadership requires a set of sensitive discipline measures. These measures cannot be so callous and insensitive as to produce hardness and bitterness. Neither can leadership be weak to the extent that it is non-consequential, ineffective, and fruitless. A key that I found in my early days of mothering was that each child would respond differently to different types of correction. Let me give you an example: I was at wits end on how to discipline one of my children. I tried various ways but to no avail. One day, out of sheer frustration, I sat the three year old child on the chair and refused to let him come down for a while. I sat opposite the child and cooled down while watching him. My job was apparently not to let him come off the chair! I noticed something that caught my attention. He was not a child that liked to sit down for a long time! He was active and wanted to be doing things unless he was sleeping!! I learned an invaluable lesson that morning – discipline methodology is fine but the personality of the child must also be considered. What works for one does not work for another! It was an “eureka” moment for me in my early days of motherhood as I was comparing myself with other mothers who had tried this method and that method and they all seemed to work for their children but never for mine! In the disciplinary process of leaders in the making, it is important to know the person well and to find the most effective way to discipline. Punishment is more easily accepted if the process by which a person is being corrected is well intentioned and meaningful.

I have no regrets in exchanging my career to stay home with my four children. I noticed that raising my children has provided me with some invaluable insight into the world of leadership. It might sound homespun but it is effective. My children are now in various parts of the world pursuing their gifts. My husband and I are currently pastors of a church and what I have learned from my days of mothering is still with me. My foundations of early leadership training came from the choice of desiring to be a mother, and through that serving my God and my family.

Rev Irene Dalseno pastors at First Assembly of God, Kuala Lumpur, and is also involved in teaching at Logos International Leadership College (www.logoscollege.org). She is married and has four children. She loves reading and has a heart for missions and women’s ministry.