Does the entrepreneurial spirit in you rub off on your family?
According to a team of researchers at the University of Warwick1, women whose mothers were self-employed are up to 2.69 times more likely than other women to be self-employed themselves, as opposed to being employees or homemakers, but there’s no such effect on women of fathers’ self-employment status.
The outcome of the research was that women who conform to gender stereotypes are less likely to produce daughters who become entrepreneurial and therefore a display of entrepreneurship in the mother promotes positive role models for the daughter to follow.
Stereotypes, role models, beliefs, values, culture; all are influential in the pathways we take and the choices we make; and having exposure to an entrepreneurial environment, particularly in the home where the demands of juggling work, life, family and business development can be felt and appreciated, there is no better example to be followed.
We can of course provide opportunities for children outside of the family home to experience and gain understanding of what it takes to be entrepreneurial. Many senior schools and colleges offer mentoring schemes whereby local businesses can provide 1:1 or group coaching sessions with students who are at critical stages of their education, having to make choices about future direction. And whilst we can all agree that the choices made at 16 or 18 years of age don’t have to define our future, the more exposure to options and opportunity they have the better informed their decision-making will be.
All entrepreneurs should aim to share their knowledge with the younger generation, whether at home or through mentorship, in order to secure the future of small and new business. I am sure that opening my daughter’s eyes to the possibilities encouraged her to set up her own Communications business in Dubai –http://footstepcommunications.com/