My husband was working with a new production company when he overheard one side of this phone conversation.

"Right. Well, I told him no." Long pause.

"The point is, if you tell him yes whenever I tell him no, he is going to come to you every time".

Another long pause...

"OK, whatever"

The employee hung up, looking frustrated.

"You must have kids," my husband said to him.

The man laughed, "Yes I do! And so-and-so doesn?t understand the slippery slope she is sliding down when she continues to do this with the team."

Parents understand the problems that arise when children learn to turn to one parent over the other. Even in the best of parental relationships, there comes a time, when either knowingly or unknowingly, one parents says yes when the other parent wants to say no.

With my husband and me, this dilemma reared its ugly head in the middle of the night. We agree that kids should sleep in their own beds. In the day, I support this wholeheartedly. But at night, when I am in a sound sleep and wanting to stay that way, when those little feet pad down the hallway and into the room, I am more likely than not, to scoop her into the bed and keep on sleeping. Dave, on the other hand, is the diligent parent who patiently takes the wandering child back to her own room and insists she stay there.

It didn?t take our three-year-old long to figure out which side of the bed to visit in her late night loneliness. In my effort to ease my short-term problem (staying asleep), I created a long-term issue (I get woken every night).

Ah, the tricky three-legged race that is parenting... and managing. With corporations flattening their org charts and business models evolving at breakneck speed, it is often difficult to know exactly who can make what decision.

But tread lightly if you start becoming the person that always says yes. It might feel great to reward employees and it's hard to resist the urge to be the popular boss.

But trust me, you don?t want to be the one that gets awaken every night because you are the push over. It eventually gets tiring.