What do mothering and leadership skills have in common?

On the occasion of Mother's Day, Yettel conducted a national, representative survey to find out what Hungarians think are the most important leadership qualities that can be decisive even during motherhood, and how the tasks related to these qualities are distributed in a family.

The research showed that although domestic parents are all the same decision-makers when it comes to financial matters, the picture is much more nuanced when it comes to the organisation and logistics of everyday life, such as paying bills, shopping, organising family events and gatherings with friends. In these areas, women tend to perceive that they have more responsibility. Interestingly, in households where there is at least one other child at home, almost half of the women surveyed feel that they are the main coordinators of these activities.

Only 5% of women see men as responsible for day-to-day tasks and less than a third (29%) said they coordinate these tasks with their partner.In contrast, nearly a quarter of male respondents (23%) feel that they are responsible for organising everyday life and only 15% say that mothers decide on these matters.

More than half of men say that the day-to-day running of the family is shared with women. This contradiction was also observed when we asked respondents how they think, in general, the role of the mother in everyday decisions in Hungary is organised: while half of women think that organisational decisions tend to fall to the mother, nearly half of men think that this is more of a shared responsibility.

Empathy is important not only for mothers, but also for leaders

The survey also looked at the most important leadership and mothering qualities. Respondents overwhelmingly cited determination as one of the most important leadership traits, with 70% of respondents citing it. And the next five skills ranked equally highly by about half of respondents: organisational skills (53%), conflict management (51%), communication skills (51%), problem-solving skills (45%) and empathy (40%). Interestingly, the latter was most often considered an essential leadership trait by women (women: 44%, men: 36%)

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For mothers, empathy (73%) is the most important, followed by flexibility and problem-solving ability (48-48%). Nearly half of respondents also consider conflict management (47%), reliability (46%) and decisiveness and decision-making ability (45%) to be important. Although there are differences in the proportions, respondents say there are several leadership qualities that are also essential for mothers: decisiveness and decision-making, conflict management, problem-solving skills and empathy all emerge as important skills. Interestingly, maternal empathy is seen as the most important skill by 16-19 year olds compared to other age groups - 83% of them cited it - but the same age group ranked leadership empathy as less important compared to the overall respondents (26%).

Skills learned in raising children can be applied at work

Eight out of ten Hungarians think that the skills they learn in raising children can be put to good use at work. "Both mothers and managers deal with and manage many tasks at once, often taking responsibility for their decisions. We believe that the skills learned in raising children can be valuable tools in the workplace, which is why we pay special attention to mothers returning from maternity leave, for example, who require particular flexibility in their work schedules due to their life situation, but in return sometimes outperform their colleagues in terms of work organisation and efficiency. We are constantly striving to create a more family-friendly workplace, supported by the introduction of paternity leave in 2021 and grandparental leave in 2023," said Enikő Szalai Enikő Szalai, Deputy CEO HR at Yettel Hungary.

Yettel organised its first Mother's Day event last year, where employees could invite their mothers to the mobile operator's office building in Turkish Balaton. Due to its great success, the programme was held again this year; this time mothers could take up a position as company executives for a day. They could decide, for example, whether Yettel should continue to expand its 5G network, or whether to implement a uniform or differentiated pay rise in the future. They could also give their opinion on the fate of a currently vacant business premises and on a complicated legal case involving subscribers.

They could also give their opinion on whether or not to increase or reduce the number of retailers or the number of retailers.

photo: freepik