We had just walked into the house after a dinner and while checking on the kids, we noticed that our 17-year old wasn’t asleep in his bed. He wasn’t even home yet.

His curfew was almost an hour ago, so I rang him to check what happened. Was he OK? Making excuses for the traffic, he assured me he would be home in just a few minutes.

While explaining to him that curfew means to be home by the agreed time and it is his responsibility to plan accordingly, I couldn’t figure out how I was really feeling. Was I mad that he was late? Upset that he broke the “house” rules? Disappointed by his lack of responsibility?

I concluded the call by telling him to think about what his punishment should be. By the time he finally managed to talk about the punishment the next day, I concluded that I was disappointed, not mad, just disappointed. But my real concern was behavioural,,, this wasn’t the first time he was late.

He just got released from his previous sentence. So I asked, “What do you think your punishment should be?” When he responded, “You should ground me for one week.” I chose this as a teaching moment about leniency.

Had he called — even messaged — informing us that he was running late, he would have demonstrated the responsibility we are looking for. The sentence would have been lessened. In management speak, this boy did not own up to his lack of performance.

It was somebody else’s fault — the traffic. Had he gotten up at 8 am and come straight to my study to discuss the issue, I would have been proud. Instead he slept till noon like teenage boys do, probably hoping I would forget about the night before. Both instances reiterate the need to learn responsibility.

One week’s grounding, is that enough? This made me wonder, “Will the punishment achieve my desired outcome — a change in his behaviour?” I wanted him to be responsible for his actions.

Frankly speaking in his case, punishment will not get the change I wanted. The fear technique does not always last when building character. All it really does is make people do the right things in order to avoid the punishment. Behaviour is temporarily changed.

Then it dawned on me, if I really want to change his behaviour I should set him up to successfully do just that. Instead of punishing him, I should put him a path to change. Give him control. We concluded that chores around the house would help build his responsibility.

To make sure he succeeded I chose two chores that he enjoys — shoot 100 free-throws per day and work out for 30 minutes — along with one that he doesn’t fancy so much — study an hour a day.

Catching myself applying my leadership coaching at home, made me question: Is my parenting being influenced by my teachings on leadership? It was, I was trying to raise a child in the same way that I help leaders grow.

The leadership point is clear, focus on the outcome you want to achieve and then devise a plan to get there. The best way to achieve behaviour change is to identify what needs to change and then give attention. Rewards and the risk associated with punishment are easy go-to methods.

But they are insufficient when trying to help someone change. A change in behaviour comes from building new habits. The practice of reward assumes that the employee will identify what habits get rewarded and make the course correction. But it usually doesn’t have the intended result.

Everybody is a creature of habit, predictably continuing to do what was done before, usually in the way as before. To get a different outcome, this must change — new habits are needed.

The easy thing for me to do as a parent would have been to ground him, give him some sort of punishment. But I knew that would not work. It hadn’t in the past, so why would I think it would now?

I needed to get to the core — change his habits to change his responsibility. If you want your employees to do something different, change their habits.

The writer is a leadership advisor and author of ‘10 Tips for Leading in the Middle East’ and other writings. Follow him on Twitter: @tommyweir.