As Bob Dylan once sang, “The times they are a-changin’”. Granted, they aren’t changing nearly fast enough, but in terms of attitudes towards women (and especially mothers) recent years have seen a shift in workplace attitudes. Of course that’s not to suggest the fight is over. Casual misogyny still pervades many a break room. Intelligent and capable women everywhere still have to make the decision whether to report the sexist joke they overheard or simply pretend that they didn’t hear it. And despite the legislative protection put in place to guard against it, many women still experience pregnancy discrimination. Indeed this New York Times article describes it as “rampant”. Not to mention a gender pay gap so deeply entrenched in corporate pay and power structures that the World Economic Forum estimates it will take over 200 years to close.

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Nonetheless, the role of women and mothers in business and entrepreneurship is gradually becoming more accepted and appreciated. Due to the efforts of generations of butt-kicking and eminently capable women smashing the glass ceiling with their entrepreneurial efforts and the plethora of opportunities the digital age provides for people around the world to make their own fortunes, entrepreneurially minded women arguably have more opportunity than ever before.

Astonishingly, there are still many who believe that motherhood and entrepreneurship are mutually exclusive. In truth they are remarkably similar in many ways.

Here we’ll take a look at why mothers are naturally predisposed to be great entrepreneurs and how the challenges of parenthood and running your own business are more starkly similar than many of the gatekeepers of business would care to admit.

Why mothers make such great entrepreneurs

It takes a very particular kind of person to become an entrepreneur. It takes a particular brand of fearlessness and determination not to mention extraordinary multitasking skills. Entrepreneurship can be a risky endeavour and those who have been lulled into a routine by their job and the painfully slow ascension of the career ladder may be shy of taking the plunge and embracing the risk along with the propensity for reward. Mothers are already primed for this.

Routine has a way of making us risk averse. It’s perfectly understandable. After all, when we become reliant upon a set income it can ease us into a sense of security that can feel like a warm blanket of which we’re less than keen to deprive ourselves.

Motherhood, however, disrupts that routine. It’s also a huge paradigm shift. It’s more than just a woman’s lifestyle that changes, her entire brain chemistry changes when she has a child. Suddenly her priorities are realigned and the fears that once consumed her now feel trivial and insignificant.

Motherhood imbues a woman with her own sense of power and agency. She becomes capable of feats she never previously thought physically possible. Suddenly it seems far more prudent to combine the skills she has learned from her career and as a parent to make a living for herself on her own terms rather than be phased back into a job where she was never truly appreciated anyway.

Besides, the worlds of entrepreneurship and motherhood aren’t really all that different. For example…

You learn to trust your instincts

Although it’s not uncommon for nascent parents to load up on baby books to help them navigate the perils and pitfalls of parenthood, a Mom quickly learns that her maternal instincts are the best guide.

The exact same could be said of business.

It’s not that there isn’t a lot of great advice out there in books, journals, online articles and (of course) sites like this, but while advice and guidance are invaluable, there’s no substitute in business for great instincts. Many of the great CEOs of our times have gone with their gut rather than making key decisions based on ream after ream of data.

A great entrepreneur should absolutely make informed decisions, but her instincts will help her to make the quick decisions based on experience and gut instinct that will keep her business agile and proactive.

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You worry about your “babies” when they go away

Every parent feels a certain twinge when dropping their kids off at the school gates for the first time. They worry that their kids might be unhappy in school or not get along with others. They also hope that their children will do a good job of representing them as a parent and demonstrate the values they have been imbued with.

Inm business, it’s not uncommon for entrepreneurs to develop strong relationships with their employees. Indeed they may even become borderline maternal towards them. They want to nurture their employees and help them grow (more on that shortly) and indeed they worry about them while they’re on the road. If you have a remote salesforce or a fleet, you will be constantly thinking not only about their safety and wellbeing but about their efficacy and how well they represent your enterprise and your brand while they’re on the road.

This instinct will make you want to invest in video telematics from Lytx, Inc. It will make you want to build accountability into your processes so that you know your employees are their best selves on the road. It will help you to ensure that your brand and your employees shine inside and outside of your workplace.

Both require tremendous discipline

You don’t know discipline until you’ve dragged yourself out of bed at 4 o’clock in the morning every night for 6 months straight to calm a screaming baby. You don’t know how truly selfless and giving you can be until you’ve had a child of your own. Parenthood causes women (and men, let’s be fair) reserves of self-discipline and mental toughness that they could nary have dreamed of before their kids came along.

That’s perfect, because if there’s one thing that entrepreneurship demands it’s discipline. Like parenthood, it demands it’s share of long hours and sleepless nights and there will be days when it feels like the business needs more from you than you have to give. The discipline forged by parenthood can make a woman a force to be reckoned with in the business world.

Empathy is an important and oft-overlooked quality in business

There’s an anachronistic perception of business people that harkens back to the 1980s (arguably the golden age of self-interest). It portrays business people and entrepreneurs as greedy and self-interested with no real passion or desires outside of making money and looking after themselves. Yet, this stereotype most certainly doesn’t reflect the majority of men and women who run SMEs in this day and age. They may be scrappy and determined, but this doesn’t mean that they’re not compassionate, empathetic and eminently ethical.

Empathy is an oft-overlooked but very important part of business. It’s empathy that allows you to pre-empt and resolve issues with employees and customers alike. It’s empathy that ensures your business embraces ethical and sustainable practices. And in an age where consumers (especially younger consumers) will happily pay more to use an ethical company rather than one which does not place ethics at the forefront of its operations, your empathy will play a large role in determining your brand’s market value!

You become a top-level negotiator

In business, we often come across roadblocks which can stall our operations and / or impede our success. Whether it’s a vendor who just won’t budge on price, a customer with unrealistic expectations or an employee who, for whatever reason, isn’t giving you the 100% you deserve. These situations can be resolved without any adverse effects for your business with shrewd negotiating skills.

And nothing hones your negotiation techniques like trying to get a 4 year old to eat their veggies or getting a 7 year old to go to bed on time. Parents know that they cannot capitulate to the whims of their children but don’t want to alienate them or crate animosity either. The same goes for negotiations with vendors, clients and employees.

In both cases a calm and reasonable demeanor, sticking to the facts, being patient and empathetic yet firm and unyielding. This is a difficult balance to attain, but it’s one that parents are able to make look easy!

Time becomes a whole lot more precious, so wasting it is anathema

Multitasking gets a bad rap in business. Conventional wisdom dictates that you should concentrate on one task at a time lest your quality of work be diminished when you spread yourself too thin. While this may be sound advice for most, parents understand that monotasking simply isn’t an option when caring for an infant. Parenthood builds multitasking and time management skills with dazzling efficiency. Parents learn to squeeze value out of every second of their active time because the relatively tiny amount of downtime they get is so precious to them.

When running a business, there are few skills more important and conducive to that elusive work / life balance than time management skills.

There have always been those who undervalue the role of mothers in business. Yet, with generation after generation of dynamic and go-getting Moms proving them wrong, hopefully those attitudes won’t ensure by the time our kids enter the workplace.