Imagine if we talked to our colleagues the way we talk to our husbands:

Imagine if you did that! They'd change jobs. So why do we think we can get away with talking like this at home?

If you're the breadwinner in your household, you're most likely a pretty amazing woman. You're probably in a position of some power at work. If that's true, you must be a good leader. You'd have to be good at managing people and resources, and being assertive without losing your shit, and empowering people around you to work toward common goals. If those things weren't true, you wouldn't be as successful as you are.

So why does a professionally empowered woman get home from work and stick her “I'm taking everything personally” hat back on? I do it, you do it, we all do it. We're not victims at work. So let's not fall into a victim mentality in our personal lives.

BUILDING CULTURE AT HOME

We spend a lot of time talking about the importance of workplace culture, and don't always give the same attention to household culture. What's the culture like in your home?

In business, we have all kinds of tools at our fingertips to keep our workplace interactions healthy: a company vision, shared values, policies about accountability, regular reviews, and communication techniques for having awkward conversations. I think it'd be a good thing if we brought some of these structures home.

Why not take the things we know about business culture to create a healthy culture in our marriage? Or adapt tools from the workplace, and make them work at home? We all invest in professional development for the good of our careers; let's give our relationships the same level of investment.

I'm not saying that you should be the boss at home or run your household like a business. I'm just saying that you can use some of those principles and practices to adjust your mindset and have a healthier home life. When you need to calm your emotional state and make a good decision, or when you need to have a hard conversation with your partner, that's when you can draw on some of the tools you've learned in the workplace. And it starts with building a healthy family culture.

Some families like to create a vision and mission statement together. You might like to put your family commitments up on the wall so you can point to them—just like you would in your company. Sometimes you have to be the visionary in your own house.

BE A PARTNER, NOT THE BOSS

If you're the boss at work—or even if you aren't—you're probably the boss at home, too. Women typically take on the role of manager in the household. Your husband might “help” a lot around the house, but you're the one who decides what you need “help” with. You remember when the bills are due, or nag him when the lawn needs mowing. He might do the laundry, but you probably remind him when you need something clean to wear on Monday. He might drive the kids to jiu jitsu, but you're most likely the one who puts things on the family calendar.

Excuse me, but who decided that you were in charge? When did that get negotiated? Is your husband your employee, or your partner?

We like to blame men for the unfair distribution of work at home. I'm wondering if they're as much to blame as we think they are. If a man lives with an empowered, capable woman who tells him what to do and how to do it, and loses it if he doesn't do things the way she would do it herself—can you blame him if he just lets her take over? If I lived with somebody who was better than me at doing household chores, and very specific about the way they wanted things done, I'd probably be quite happy to sit back and let them do most of the work.

The problem with appointing yourself household manager is that it sets your husband up to be treated like an employee, not like an equal partner in the marriage. Not only that, but in addition to managing all the household responsibilities, women typically do up to 80% of the chores themselves. I'm sorry, what kind of good manager does 80% of the day-to-day work? Haven't we heard of delegating?

Part of treating your marriage like a 50/50 partnership is giving over control of 50% of your shared responsibilities. You don't need to take over everything, even if you're honestly better at something than he is. We all love to tell our husbands how to do things. But will it kill you if he doesn't make the banana bread the same way you do? Isn't it good enough that he's doing it, so you don't have to?

Have you ever heard yourself saying, “Everything depends on me! If I want something done properly I have to do it myself! You have no idea how much I do around here!” These are the catchphrases of a nagging wife. We've all heard them or been guilty of saying some version of them at some point.

If you want a life where everything isn't dependent on you, you need to accept things done differently from how you would do them. Declare that to yourself: I want a life where everything is not dependent on me. Every time you feel like stepping in, remind yourself of that promise you made to yourself. I don't want a life where everything depends on me, so I'm willing to accept it done his way.

And if he really has no idea how much work you do around the house, show him. Let him take responsibility for his half of it so that he can appreciate what it takes for the two of you to manage your lives together. That means stepping back and letting him drop the ball sometimes. If you did all your kids' homework for them, would they learn anything? It sounds arrogant to talk about your husband that way, doesn't it? But the reality is that women often treat their husbands like kids who can't do their own homework, instead of treating them like grown adults. It's like it's in our DNA to take over everything around us.

Don't get me wrong: women are (generally) fantastic at household management. We tend to be really good at multitasking, and most of us are born organizers. Traditional gender roles are what they are, and they run deep. Women have always been in charge of running things at home, and typically we're incredibly good at it.

But just because you're the best at something doesn't mean that you have to be the one to do it. This applies at work and at home. Think of marriage as a team effort and yourself as a team player. The most qualified person on the team doesn't automatically get to do everything. At work we delegate responsibilities to the people around us as a way of empowering them, and freeing ourselves up to do more important things.

Sure, if you delegate something it often won't be done as well as you'd do it yourself. But I have a rule at work that if something's done to 70% of the standard that I'd do it myself, it's good enough. If somebody does something to 70% of your standard you're onto a winner, because you didn't have to do it yourself! If we applied the same rule at home we'd save ourselves a lot of trouble. And just because something isn't done your way doesn't automatically mean it's not good enough. Treating your partner like a partner means trusting the way he chooses to carry out his half of the responsibilities.

If you let go of tightly controlling everything, I guarantee you'll realize that your partner is actually better at some things than you are. Florian's definitely much better at a lot of household things than I am. But I'd never know that if I were trying to do it all myself.

EXPECTATIONS AT WORK AND HOME

Recently I was in one of my offices around the time that all my staff were going to lunch. The phone was ringing, but nobody picked it up because they were all trying to get out to have their break. Obviously I just wanted to go: “Oh my God, the phone is ringing and nobody's answering it. Hel-lo? Do you hear that?”

That's what I would have said at home. “The baby's crying, hel-lo? Am I the only one who can hear that? Where's your father?” I do it all the time.

But at work we don't say “The fucking phone is ringing, are you deaf?” Try that out and see how it works for you! How many staff do you think you'd have left? Instead we're disciplined about how we respond to things at work. We take a deep breath and make constructive comments, like:

Hey everyone, I know it's your lunch break but the phone is ringing and that's a customer. Are we still committed to putting customers first?

What structures do we need to put in place to make sure that everybody doesn't go to lunch at the same time? Because letting the phone ring is not aligned with what we're all committed to.

It's okay, we'll let this one slide. Let's all have a chat about it after lunch so that we can avoid it happening again.

Imagine if you spoke to your husband more like that at home. Don't you think the conversation would go a lot better than, “Hel-lo, the baby is crying? Isn't it your turn?”

I didn't lose my temper at work because it wouldn't help the situation and it would damage my relationship with my staff. Isn't the same true at home? At work we have rules around communication and how it's acceptable to speak to one another. Do you hold yourself to the same standards when you're talking to your life partner?

I don't have a big blowup with my staff every time something goes wrong, because I understand they're only human. They get complacent, and so do I. In a healthy workplace you don't blame or dwell on that, you just figure out what you need to do to revitalize the culture.

As leaders at work, we know we need to keep reinforcing our mission if we want our people to stay committed to it. We don't explain the company vision and values at the job interview, then expect people to remember them three years later. We keep having those conversations all the time. We're constantly reviewing the commitments we've made together, as a team, so that we stay on track.

It can be exactly the same at home. You can't just tell your partner on the first day you move in together: “Okay, you'll be in charge of taking the trash barrels out” and then get shitty every time they're overflowing from that day forth. First of all, you need to check that he's okay with that agreement in the first place. Then you need to review it every so often and make sure that your expectation is still reasonable, and he's still onboard.

At work we call it a performance review. We sit down with our staff and say, “How's everything working out? Are you happy to keep going on the pathway we designed for you? What can we do better?” We check whether both parties are meeting their obligations, because we're a team. Nobody's yelling and throwing shit at each other, at least not in healthy workplaces. It's a positive conversation.

I'm not saying to treat your partner like he or she is an employee. I'm saying don't treat them worse than an employee. If you've got the skills to handle your own emotions and negotiate conflict productively at work, you can step up and do the same at home. Show your partner you love them by treating them with at least the same level of respect you would apply to an interaction with your staff or colleagues. If you chose to spend your life with them, they're probably worth a lot more of your energy than anyone you spend time with at work.

The basis of a healthy partnership is respectful listening. Emily has an exercise to help with that:

HAPPY HOME, HEALTHY BUSINESS

The most important career decision you'll make is who your life partner is.¹

—Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook

I don't function well as an entrepreneur if I'm not feeling supported and loved at home. The two things are directly correlated for me. I'm sure this is true no matter what your relationship status is: if you're content and happy in your personal life, you're more likely to be confident at work. Your personal stuff shows up everywhere. So creating a stable, happy home life is part of setting yourself up for winning in business.

If I show up to work and I've had a fight with Florian, everybody knows! Coming to work grumpy from a fight at home is going to impact my day in the business, exactly the same way that it impacts my family if I get home from a shitty day at work. On the other hand, if I come home on a high from a huge win at work, we're celebrating as a family. And if I feel loved and supported at home, I'm unstoppable at work.

Your spouse might not be your business partner, but they are your partner in life. They can be your most important support as you navigate your career, even if they're not involved in your work at all.

I don't ask for Florian's permission when it comes to my business and my career, unless it impacts the family. He knows that I love family time and really guard it, so I'm not going to make decisions that eat into my quality time at home. He's reassured by that, and the workings of it don't really interest him.

What does concern him is when my friends know what's going on in my work life before he does. Things move fast in my world, and a lot of my friends are involved in my businesses, so sometimes they know what I'm up to first. If something major happens for me at work and he hears about it through somebody else, you can see his bottom lip drop.

Whenever he feels like that, he knows to call a “Baileys night.” It's this tradition we've got, where he'll come home with a bottle of Baileys, and when I see it sitting there I know that we're going to stay up until 3 a.m. and drink the whole bottle together. Usually on a weeknight! We'll sit and talk for five hours, and it's not five hours of arguing and debating, it's me going, “I'm so excited, I've got so much to tell you!” And him saying “Yeah, me too!” And we'll share what we're thinking and bounce ideas off each other. That's what we do, whenever we feel like we're not connected.

We try to share everything. He doesn't want me making business decisions that affect the family. I don't want to miss out on parenthood. I'm still a mom, and I still very much want to know what's going on with the kids all the time. He doesn't make any critical decisions about the kids without asking, and in return I don't do that about business for him.

MIXING BUSINESS AND PLEASURE

I think it's a total myth that if we want to keep our professional image intact, we have to pretend not to have a personal life. (Remember Sallie Krawcheck and the pink nail polish?) “Don't mix business and pleasure”—that's bullshit! If you love your work, business is a pleasure. And if you have a spouse who you love too, you can invite them in to share that with you. I think when we let our personal life filter into our work, it enriches the way we do business.

My career presents a lot of opportunities to travel away from the family. Florian and I see these trips as things I'm committed to because I'm passionate, not things I'm obligated to do because of business. I always ask permission from him if it's going to impact him and the kids, but I tend to only accept offers that give me the opportunity to blend. Most people around me know not to bother inviting me unless it's a blending thing. They know I won't go too long without the kids, and that I like to take my husband with me on trips. We love to go on planes together; we call it a “date flight.”

So I always invite Florian to come with me if I can. Sometimes he says he'd love to come and other times he's not interested, and then I decide whether I want to go without him or not. He's never once told me I can't go. I don't have to ask for permission, it's never “Can you look after the kids when I go away?” Instead the conversation goes: “I have a trip, of course you're invited, would you like to come?” If he says no, he knows he's staying at home with the kids. There's no begging and pleading and getting one up on each other. It's never like “you just had a boys' weekend, now it's my turn.” That's toxic!

You're probably wondering how we manage to go on trips together when we have two kids. Sometimes we have family to look after them. Sometimes we take them with us. Other times we go via New Zealand and drop them off with their grandparents, so they can have time together. We just look at the options each time.

It's been harder since the kids started school, but while they're in elementary school we figured that an experience in another country is pretty good exposure for them. We decided that we don't want to pay for private elementary schooling and instead use the money to invest in experiences that help them be worldly and streetsmart. We had a discussion about that and agreed to it.

I'm very conscious that our kids are growing up in a bubble. We are on an island. By the time they finish school, I want them to have a bigger perspective and be responsible enough to look after themselves. We're rearing adults, right? We're trying to empower them to be able to survive on their own. So we will pull them out of school unapologetically, because to us the experience of traveling to non-English-speaking countries to experience different cultures is just as valuable as school. And you can take homework anywhere.

My husband gets that my career is one of my great passions, and my kids are starting to understand that too. When exciting things happen in my work life, we all celebrate. And I see my work as part of a bigger plan for our family.

Something that's brought me and Florian together over the past few years has been that we both have bucket lists, and we love to see each other tick things off. Now our kids have started their own lists.

Blending my work life and my family life isn't just about taking the family on trips; it's about all of us having a shared vision, and working on it together.