Leading a business and being married have a lot in common. Both require building partnerships and maintaining commitment. A recent article by Forbes suggests that a happy marriage can lead to being a better CEO.
As the saying goes, “a happy wife is a happy life” and through his research, Steve Cooper has found that being happily married–not just being married– is beneficial to a person’s mental and physical health as well as their financial decisions. He suggests taking care of needs in your living room before taking care of responsibilities in the boardroom. He lists four reasons how being happily married and being a successful CEO relate.
Here are two examples:
2. You have to communicate.
A willingness to communicate and having a successful marriage go hand in hand. Research shows that couples who keep things bottled in don’t reap the benefits of living longer lives and those in conflict at home take longer to heal from physical injury. Part of being a CEO means looking at things from a long-term perspective and being physically and mentally capable of carrying out necessary workloads.
3. You have to tackle conflict.
Having open communication within your marriage leads to better conflict management within the workplace. Dr. Terri Orbuch’s study, “The Early Years of Marriage Project,” suggests that avoiding conflict at home leads to being very unhappy overtime. A negative attitude brought into a place of business can eventually surface and trickle down to employees or spread to outside partners.
Read Cooper’s other reasons on Forbes’ website.
BMWK– Have you found that having a happy marriage makes you a better businessman/woman? What correlations have you found?