We work so hard to build our management and leadership skills in our careers, but we often feel like blithering idiots when faced with a child who won't cooperate, a husband who doesn't pay attention and a household that seems ready to collapse from the weight of our anxiety about chores. “Why can't I be as smart at home as I am at work?” I have often found myself wondering.

These words—written by CEO of Working Mother media Carol Evans and excerpted from the Foreword of Mom-in-Chief: How Wisdom from the Workplace Can Save Your Family from Chaos (Wiley, February 2009, ISBN: 978-0-4703813-1-1, $22.95), —sum up why leadership expert Jamie Woolf wrote this book. They reflect the sentiments of countless professional women who feel great about their accomplishments in the workplace but not so great about how they run their homes.

In this one-of-a-kind book, Working Mother magazine contributor and executive consultant, Jamie Woolf, shows how the skills working mothers learn at the office, like leadership and team building, can work at home with their children and families. With the wisdom and wry humor of a working mom “who’s been there and done that,” Woolf shows how any woman can fulfill her parenting potential and navigate the daily challenges on the home front with skill and grace.

Mom-in-Chief is filled with real-life stories, in-the-trenches strategies, and interactive assessment tools that clearly show how proven workplace techniques can increase your family’s bottom line for happiness. Drawing from her two decades of experience, Jamie Woolf offers her “best practices” that will help you improve your communication, create a healthy family culture, discover your parent leadership style, manage crises, and thrive during your child’s adolescence.  

Mom-in-Chief offers practical solutions to common leadership dilemmas, including:

• When to step in and when to step back
• Why working with your spouse or partner is crucial to executive function and team happiness.
  
• How to maximize the learning opportunities that come from mistakes
  
• How to stay connected with a pesky toddler or testy teenager
  
• How to create rituals that strengthen the family's esprit de corps
  
• How to feel less like a maid or short-order cook and more like a skilled leader capable of unleashing the potential of others 

These few examples barely brush the surface of the kinds of tools, techniques and insights you’ll learn from Mom-in-Chief. This book is packed with relatable real-life stories that bring its central messages to life. Jamie Woolf reminds us that leading a family doesn’t mean churning out living masterpieces, or indulging children with the perfect everything.  It means inspiring without pushing your own agenda, nurturing without micromanaging, encouraging without aiming to win a best-of-show competition, and expecting the best without ignoring the joy of childhood. 

The Author
Jamie Woolf is a veteran leadership consultant and contributor to Working Mother Magazine who does special trainings, radio shows, workshops, webcasts, and conference appearances for the magazine. In addition, Woolf is CEO and founder of The Parent Leader and Pinehurst Consulting; she works with corporate clients to help companies be more productive and family friendly. Jamie Woolf lives with her husband and two daughters in Oakland, California.