The other day my daughter Lucy’s nursery teacher made a point of speaking to my wife Kate at pick-up.

She was glowing with praise over something our four year-old daughter had done during play. She was playing with some game or other with two little boys, and the boys were starting to fight over the game.

Lucy managed to stop the fight restore harmony by organising each one of the three of them to take turns on different elements of the game.

If I had been writing about my son Finn doing this, most people would probably say he had shown leadership qualities. But how many people would say the same thing about Lucy, and how many would call her bossy?

Thankfully her nursery teacher recognised Lucy for the brilliant little leader that she is.

But as the Ban Bossy campaign in the US has highlighted, too often girls are put down rather than praised for showing leadership.

I’ve only just come across the campaign, thanks to Sinead O’Connor borrowing the title for her new album – I’m not bossy, I’m the boss – from it*.

One of the startling claims made by the campaign is that by Middle School – i.e. between the ages of 10 and 14 - girls are less interested in leading than boys—a trend that continues into adulthood.

I would never dream of pushing Lucy into anything, but she is quite clearly a born leader. At the age of just two, an elderly lady she had never met before saw her playing in a church hall, walked up to her and told her “you’re going to be Prime Minister one day”.

Having a determined little girl can be challenging and at times infuriating – her tantrums are something to behold – but we do our best to make sure she has good manners and respects others…to make sure that she is a leader rather than a bully.

What I will also make sure that I do from now on is to stop myself and others from calling her bossy…and who knows, maybe one day she will be Prime Minister?

_*I saw Sinead O’Connor perform her single “Take me to Church” on Later with Jools Holland last night and was pleasantly surprised, and this was what led me to look up the album. Have a listen, it’s rather good (reminds me a bit of The Cranberries):