Leaders Living Vicariously

When I told my Grandad and my Father I was going to be a professional ice hockey

player they said I wouldn’t be. Just like that. Not in the way that most parents would say

“No” to the idea of their child demanding they wanted to eat sweets for breakfast or

when they get older, knowing they had to be back home by 9pm but asking if it could be

11pm. It was not a reasonable “No.” It was a deflating, infuriating and confidence

cracking “No.”

I promised myself that when I became a parent, I wouldn’t be like that. Don’t get me

wrong, I don’t let my kids eat flying saucers instead of toast and curfews for my older

kids are not up for debate, but if my child believes they can do something, if they

express a wish to me or my wife that they’d like to try something new, to pursue a new

hobby, we would allow them to do so without judgement...

It is often said you either follow the same path as your parents or you do the opposite.

Children of Conservative voters register with the Green Party, the off-spring of

academics opt for a career in the arts or the family business is kept ticking over by the

next generation and the legacy continues.

My five year old has just started playing ice hockey. I couldn’t be prouder. Or more

excited. Or more desperate to show him that he can not only play ice hockey but he

could be the youngest ever winner of the Stanley Cup... I am not like my father. But

have I gone to the other end of the scale?

This is the Andrew Sillitoe Show.

I’m a business leader and a parent. I am proud of my achievements in both and am

knacked and energised by these roles, equally. Sometimes these positions and the

skills needed for success in them go hand in hand. The skills needed to be a good

leader; patience, determination, ambition, drive, ability to listen overlap with the skills

needed to be a good parent.

I try and listen to my children in a way that I was not listened to by my parents. It’s not a

criticism of them. My Dad was pressured by circumstance, the idea that he had to make

more money, the idea that he was the head of the family and the provider. If you’ve

listened to the podcast before you know that the relationship with my Dad has shaped

my life in many ways. But this episode isn’t about my Dad. This episode is about me

being a Dad and how my son’s new hobby has made me question more about

parenthood than I was expecting.

My son, at the time of this recording, is 5 years old. He is the oldest he has ever been,

because that is how time works, but he is also my youngest child and, because I am a

parent, I have the unique position of being able to see him at every single stage of his

life when I look at him. I am told that this doesn’t ever stop and friends of mine with

children who are forty still reach for their children’s hands while they cross the road,

almost unaware that they have been voting, paying taxes and existing as a human

without the need for parenting, for decades.

When my son expressed an interest in ice hockey, one of my true loves, I was

overjoyed. I had imagined buying his kit, cheering him on from the sidelines and

hugging him at the end of a match defeat with so much passion he felt like he had won.

I have also been reminded that living my life through my son is not an option. To quote a

famously troubled father in the form of King Lear “That way madness lies...” and I have

no intention of being that kind of father.

I am aiming to walk that tightrope between being supportive but not pushy and

encouraging but not encroaching. Let me tell you right away it is a thin line...

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