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How parenting and personal growth shape our leadership at work

As I said in my previous article, I’m currently navigating a moment of transition—looking for a new professional chapter. And like many people facing uncertainty, I’ve caught myself worrying: Am I still relevant? What if I don’t find something soon enough? But instead of spiraling, I’ve been reflecting. On my fears, yes—but also on how I’ve grown. And how those changes make me more ready than ever.

Among all the experiences that have shaped me, there’s one I want to highlight today: parenting. Being a father has made me feel truly special. It’s the most challenging and transformative role I’ve ever taken on. Being a father to two curious, bold, and loving girls has pushed me to listen differently, to unlearn assumptions, and to open myself to growth in ways I never imagined. It made me rethink the way I move through the world—at home and at work.

So I decided to start this reflection with a story about my daughters—just one among many that reshaped me in a way I could never undo. A moment that reminded me how personal transformation and professional evolution are not separate journeys, but deeply connected paths. And I’ve come to believe this: the way we relate to differences in our personal lives says a lot about how we build teams, shape culture, and make decisions in professional settings.

So while this story starts with a bedtime question, it also holds lessons about power, privilege, and the importance of breaking out of old systems—in parenting and in leadership. It’s about listening. About unlearning and being always open to learning. And about the kind of inner work that makes us better leaders, collaborators, and creators.

How a bedtime story rewrote the way I listen

Admiration is a beautiful feeling. It’s a sensory and intellectual act of appreciating someone else. And it’s essential for building relationships based on trust. But admiration is also a cultural construct. We learn, over time, who is worthy of admiration—and who isn’t. In a patriarchal society, we, as men, are taught to admire other men. That’s the so-called “masculinity code.” – “Don’t cry like a little girl.” – “You sound like a hysterical woman.” – “Man up and take responsibility.” (As if men haven’t been the ones abandoning their kids for generations, leaving mothers to raise them alone).

This pact has serious consequences—especially for women, but not only them. And we men won’t dismantle this system by waiting around for extraordinary women to earn our respect. We have to unlearn. Paul Klee, the abstract artist, studied children’s drawings and the work of people labeled as “insane” to unlearn the rigid habits of academic art. Before him, Gauguin did something similar, turning to Indigenous art. They wanted to break free from what they’d been taught to create something new—art that matched the spirit of a changing world.

At first glance, that might seem far removed from our everyday lives. But their example fits perfectly with what I experienced—as a white, cisgender, heterosexual man, a musician, and a folk-rock lover (that last part will make sense soon). A couple of years ago, during bedtime, I was reading a book to my daughters, Luna (7) and Mel (4). The book was History of Rock’n’Roll for kids. Partway through, Luna looked up at me and asked:

• “Dad, why are there so few girls in this book? I’m learning piano,” she said. “And there are more girls like me who love music, right?”
• “Yes, there are!”, I said.
• “Then why aren’t they in the book?”

I glanced at the author’s name—a woman. I didn’t know what to say. 

Over the next few days, the questions kept coming:

• “Dad, why do you only listen to boy bands?” (she meant “bands with male voices” :D)
• “Why are there only boys in your band?”
• “Can we start a band?”
• “If Mom knows how to play music, why doesn’t she have a band?”
• “Why do the girls in cartoons play with dolls and the boys play guitar?”

I could’ve brushed it off. Or said something thoughtless like, “There are just more men making good music.” I’m not proud of it, but that thought had crossed my mind before. But I didn’t. We started a conversation—on their terms. Two little girls, trying to make sense of the world, called it what it was: unfair. And they were right. So I listened. I agreed. And in that moment, I made a quiet promise—not just to them, but to myself: to notice more, to question more, and to do better.

The Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes experiment

Around the same time, I read about a famous experiment called Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes. In the 1960s, just after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, a white teacher in an all-white American school, upset by the racial hatred around her, divided her students by eye color.

On day one, blue-eyed kids got privileges. They ate first, played longer, and were encouraged to speak up. Brown-eyed kids were ignored, dismissed, and shamed. That same day, a blue-eyed child insulted a brown-eyed classmate. When the teacher asked what happened, the brown-eyed child sobbed, “He called me brown eyes.”

Kids who’d always excelled in class began to struggle. Outgoing kids became withdrawn. When the roles were reversed, the same thing happened to the blue-eyed kids. It only took one day of being labeled “less than” for their confidence and performance to collapse.

Years later, in the documentary Blue Eyes, the teacher asked us to imagine the impact of that treatment across a lifetime—or worse, over generations. That hit me hard. Because I’m raising two girls. Two women-in-the-making.I started to feel that something in me—my mindset, my behavior—wasn’t right. The idea of treating my daughters as if they were somehow less capable than other people’s sons was simply unjust. I couldn’t just sit with that thought and do nothing.

The call

So back to the girls. In the following days I kept thinking why I had only ever admired male musicians and male voices, with rare exceptions. And I was impressed by the effect those two little girls, who still needed help in the bathroom, had on me. They showed me—very clearly—that a masculinity code had shaped my musical taste. A system that teaches us, as men, to value and amplify the voices of other men. 

Their questions made me uncomfortable. And that discomfort pushed me to reflect. At first, I froze. I even felt a twinge of anger. – “Come on! I just want to enjoy my music!” And then, like so many men do when challenged, I played the victim. – “I’ve already given up so much to be a dad. Now I can’t even listen to what I like?” That’s the thing about privilege—it doesn’t like to be questioned. It reacts with anger. With self-pity. But I heard the call. And there was no going back.

So I started small. Making a playlist. I love making playlists. It’s creative, it’s personal. It takes research, curiosity, and emotional range. I called the playlist The Goddesses. Since it was the pandemic and I was home with the girls while their mom, Luisa, and I juggled everything, we started listening to that playlist together, every day.

We dove into the stories behind the voices. Luna became a Madonna fan. Mel? Cyndi Lauper. Except she called her “Flindy Maufy, Madonna’s sister.” And me? A die-hard rocker turned full-on Alicia Keys fan, to the complete disbelief of my old bandmates. Today, my Spotify top tracks are about 80% women—not because I’m trying to be a cool dad, but because I finally realized that by tuning them out, I’d been missing out on so much incredible music. Leaving women artists out didn’t make me more discerning. It just made my world smaller.

What Changed When I Started Listening

This shift, as small as it sounds, changed how I saw the world. It changed me. And I want to share two takeaways from that change:

1. I saw my privilege in high definition. It took me 40 years to realize that the lack of women in my playlists wasn’t natural—it was learned. A product of that masculinity code. And that “absence” of women? A lie. A trap.

2. There is no silence from women. Only silencing. Women are out there. Creating. Innovating. And when I, a man, decided to truly reflect on this, I showed my daughters something important: when girls don’t see themselves in a space, it’s not because they don’t belong. It’s because the story being told is incomplete. We can fill in those gaps. Or better yet—rewrite the story entirely.

My music taste changed. These days, I listen to way more women than men. But this didn’t end with some feel-good movie moment of a dad dancing to Girl on Fire. It went further. I started making playlists that amplified other marginalized voices too. I discovered that some of the best, most creative artists in Brazil today are trans women. That led me to notice patterns in my film and book choices. I saw how female authors and directors offered fresh perspectives that were often invisible to me as a man.

I began to study and learn more about concepts (and practices) like feminism, toxic masculinity, among others. I recognized patterns in my own behavior: interrupting women, subconsciously doubting their competence. No wonder I’d ended up mostly working with men—often in tense, unproductive environments. That realization changed how I work. When I started truly listening to and respecting women, everything became easier. Less conflict. More collaboration. Because diverse teams dismantle that toxic sense of territorialism. They make room for innovation. Creativity. Real progress.

I saw this firsthand at a company I worked for. A place founded and led by women. The culture there was unlike anything I’d experienced before: deeply collaborative, genuinely respectful, and full of care. No one apologized when their kids popped into a Zoom frame—in fact, those moments were met with warmth, not judgment. What struck me most was how ideas were never seen as threats. I felt safe sharing mine, and that gave me a sense of confidence and belonging I hadn’t known I was missing.

And now I realize parenting had helped prepare me for that. It taught me the kind of respect, patience, and emotional awareness I needed to truly thrive in that environment—and to contribute meaningfully to it.

Inner Work Builds Outer Impact

I could talk for hours about how much that one question my daughter asked changed my life—my relationship, my friendships, my work. It started a wave of change that still ripples outward. But beyond my personal story, here are some valuable takeaways:

1. We are responsible for change.

We can’t wait for “exceptional women” to earn our respect. My daughters didn’t change me. They sparked something. But I did the work. I chose to change. I unlearned, like Klee and Gauguin. The impact of my choices may be small—but trust me, they matter.

2. We have to break the masculinity pact.

When the only stories we see star people like us, our empathy shrinks. Our creativity dies. We lose the ability to relate, lead, love, connect. We need to listen to women. Not just their music—but their stories, struggles, and ideas. Gender equity begins in our minds. We must equalize the volume of the voices in our heads. The male voice can’t be the default. Listening isn’t automatic—it’s a skill. And it starts with a playlist, maybe, but eventually demands real action. Taking a stand when someone makes a sexist joke. Calling out injustice, even when it’s uncomfortable.

3. This isn’t just a personal issue—it’s systemic.

When we talk about listening, representation, and empathy, we’re not just talking about family dynamics. We’re talking about culture: How it’s built, sustained, and changed. Content consumption choices have a ripple effect. They reshape industries. They influence what gets funded, who gets hired, how brands speak, and how teams perform. An inclusive culture isn’t possible without individual decisions to seek out diverse voices. There is no high performance without collaboration—and no collaboration without trust between people who are different from one another. Teams that lack representation suffer from blind spots. Leaders who don’t know how to listen miss what matters. And companies that don’t embrace discomfort won’t innovate.

If we want high-performing teams, we have to learn to listen do diverse voices. In a moment when DEI is under attack and LGBTQIA+ rights are being rolled back, companies face a choice: retreat—or lead. The ones who thrive will be those bold enough to build truly inclusive cultures. Not as a trend, but as a commitment to people, progress, and performance. Because diversity isn’t a threat. It’s a competitive edge.

And the lesson I keep learning—again and again—is this: If we want to become better leaders, better partners, better humans, we need to listen, to act with empathy, with openness, and with the belief that everyone deserves to be heard.

The bottom line for me is that we, men, have a lot to learn from women. Men who learn from women, understand them, and begin to incorporate this knowledge into their way of being do not become less of a man. They become better human beings.