Loving Leadership

Conscious leaders have begun to consider the global impacts on the biosphere as a key part of their decision making... showing how we can participate in the evolution toward a brighter, better future.

By Gregory Stebbins, Ed.D.

 

“Loving Leadership”… This phrase may seem like an oxymoron. But as management guru Ken Blanchard has said, “It might sound bizarre, but one of the beliefs for effective leadership is to be madly in love with all the people you’re leading.”

Let’s explore this possibility in 3 parts:

• Loving Leadership: Why It’s Time To Start Genuinely Caring For Your Team
• How To Become A Loving Leader (From The Inside Out)
• Loving Leadership: Does Our Definition Do Us a Disservice?

Loving Leadership: Why It’s Time To Start Genuinely Caring For Your Team

Have you ever felt like you were at war in your business? That shouldn’t come as a surprise, given that leadership models were originally based on military models. Military academies still focus on developing leaders.

You may have heard the idea that everything is based on either fear or love. In the 1500s, Niccolo Machiavelli wrote The Prince. He was asked a question about being loved versus being feared, and in answering, Machiavelli wrote, “The answer is of course, that it would be best to be both loved and feared. But since the two rarely come together, anyone compelled to choose will find greater security in being feared than in being loved.” He related this to military models, providing examples of Hannibal and others who were feared. In 1651, Thomas Hobbes’ publication Leviathan described the natural state of mankind as “nasty, brutish and short.”

Our collective conscious awareness has evolved significantly since Machiavelli and Hobbes.

In the early 20^th century, business looked for ways to increase productivity with a largely uneducated workforce. Frederick Winslow Taylor, author of The Principles of Scientific Management, proposed what was a thinly disguised military model. Fear was scientifically injected into the workplace. Though productivity did increase, another result was power struggles between management and unions representing workers. World War II and the Korean War only served to reinforce Taylor’s model in the United States.

Transitioning From Brawn To Brain

In the early 1950s, perceptions about leading began to shift with the work of Abraham Maslow and Dr. W. Edwards Deming’s famous “14 Points.” As work became less about muscle and more about mind, leadership styles started to change.

Today, we have an ever-increasing number of “knowledge workers,” and millennials are rapidly moving into leadership roles. Managing them through fear often results in them voting with their feet to find a more engaging corporate culture. The Great Resignation of 2021/22 is a prime example.

Rapid changes in the last 25 years now require leaders to look at different approaches. What will replace the old models?

What’s Love Got To Do With It?

“It might sound bizarre, but one of the beliefs for effective leadership is to be madly in love with all the people you’re leading.” – Ken Blanchard

For a moment, consider a leader who may have inspired you. Perhaps they inspired you because they touched your deepest essence. They brought forward the very best of who you are, encouraging you to transcend any fear you might have had and any doubts that might have been weighing on you. And, for a select few leaders, they led from their loving, which allowed you to bring forward your loving.

We are all born with a consciousness of unconditional loving – even if only for a brief instant. This consciousness is slowly buried under beliefs about who we are, what we can do, where we can do it, when we can do it and how we can do it. By the time we reach adulthood, there are many layers of rules that have become hardened or crystallized. And yet that spark of unconditional loving still exists inside each person. Only rarely is it extinguished completely.

When we first come into the work environment, we have bosses and co-workers who bring with them their distinctive individual beliefs. These beliefs may or may not match the ones we have. In an effort to be a responsible adult, and to ensure we can support ourselves, we “buy into” many of these other beliefs even if they don’t match ours. After about 31 days, these beliefs begin to become our beliefs and slip from a conscious choice to an unconscious default action.

In the work environment, people often choose from four substitutes for loving:

• Some leaders focus on money and become so bound to the quarter-to-quarter expectations of Wall Street that they won’t allow anything but the complete and total focus on revenue and expenses to inform their choices.
• Others make sure they gain recognition for their accomplishments, and if they don’t have any accomplishments, they may lay claim to those of their co-workers.
• Some focus on protecting themselves by becoming indispensable to the organization, or so they believe.
• And finally, human resources’ biggest fear: the romantic ideal. In this idealized fantasy, leaders tend to downplay or perhaps reject what other employees see clearly — for example, customer dissatisfaction, legal challenges, and even the possibility that their employment is coming to an end.

Yet deep down inside, people are crying out for love. Most of us don’t have a definition of loving that won’t put our livelihood in jeopardy, so we continue our pursuit for one or all of the four loving substitutes.

“Great leaders genuinely care for and love the people they lead more than they love leading itself. Leadership without love degenerates into self-serving manipulation.” – Rick Warren, founder and senior pastor of the 8th largest church in the U.S.

Loving leadership, the next evolution of leadership, is becoming an answer to that cry. Dr. Raj Sisodia, one of the thought leaders of Conscious Capitalism: Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business, talks about love and caring as the main building blocks for building fully-human organizations. Another example is John Mackey, founder and CEO of Whole Foods, and Subaru, which has built an entire advertising campaign on love.

“The voice of your loving becomes clearer as you practice listening to it. You learn to screen out the voices that are not loving. That way, you build a conscious connection to your loving guidance. Then you can be confident that love is leading you.” – John Roger, founder of the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness

The action of loving is unique in that it is both a choice and an outcome. Regardless of work situations or circumstances, a leader can choose to radiate loving. The outcome is the recipient also begins to resonate with loving, which can have numerous benefits — including financial — to an organization.

How are you choosing to lead?

How To Become A Loving Leader (From The Inside Out)

Much has been written about bringing loving to the forefront in our everyday application of leadership. Academic research has been focused on loving for quite some time. Carl Roger’s “unconditional positive regard” is an example of this.

As the saying goes, “Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” It is a higher form of consciousness that has to do with genuinely listening, respecting and holding others in unconditional positive regard. It takes great courage to provide this kind of loving in the business environment.

From The Inside Out

For the leader, it comes down to how the leader holds others within his or her consciousness. Some leaders are very nice with their external expression, yet inside are criticizing and negatively judging others. In a sense, when a person is holding negative thoughts or emotions, it does show up physically, and employees are often sensitive enough to feel and be repelled by that negativity. Something always seems a bit off, as if there is a negative presence with that leader and you don’t want to spend a lot of time around them – let alone try to please them.

When a leader moves from evaluating skill levels to judging the attributes of the employee, he or she begins to trigger this negative presence. Those judgments not only block the opportunity to be loving, they also block communication with the other person. And, as written in the New Testament, “Judge not, lest ye be judged.” That is, the leader who judges is likely to be the leader who is resented and judged when he or she leaves the room.

What happens when a leader honors or loves the beingness of another employee, colleague or stakeholder? Often this honoring of another through our thoughts and emotions creates a physical presence that people are automatically drawn to.

Even though all of this takes place within the beingness of the leader, the waves of transcendence come forward, helping to unbind others from their often self-imposed restrictions. Loving is the core teaching of transcendent leadership.

Where To Start?

A leader can start by holding a consciousness of acceptance for others in their environment. Acceptance simply says that you are accepting the person in the way he or she shows up. It doesn’t mean that you necessarily agree with how they show up or acquiesce when that person is disruptive in the work environment.

If your organization has culture standards that are not being met by an employee, then those standards need to be effectively discussed with the employee. This is a process of positive reinforcement done with a loving attitude. Punishment is not a component of loving leadership and only perpetuates a leader’s negative presence.

Next, you can focus on the positives that the employee is bringing to the organization. If you are holding this focus inside of you, you may begin to view that person or the results she produces with a sense of awe.

One of my early experiences with this sense of awe happened several years ago. I was working for a leader whose presence was completely inclusive of all those around him. He could, through his team, accomplish more than anyone else in the organization. At the time, I had no idea how he did this, but he was more than willing to coach me on his process. The key ingredient was his unconditional loving.

In today’s tight employment market, holding employees inside with a consciousness of genuine gratitude will be felt by those employees. When you hold gratitude for another, your voice dynamics change, as does your entire demeanor towards that person. In a sense, you will treat a person differently when you are holding gratitude towards him or her.

Acceptance and focusing on the positive are the easiest aspects that you can use to start creating a loving environment that is non-inflictive. These work because you are aligning yourself toward an internal loving consciousness. How you align yourself on the inside begins to show up on the outside.

The next time you are triggered to scold or judge someone on the inside, you can choose a different path. If you have held negative thoughts about an employee, you can revamp your approach and begin to consciously change who you believe they are. The end result is a shift in your presence that will be felt throughout the organization. Don’t be surprised if people start wanting to hang out with you on a more regular basis.

Loving Leadership: Does Our Definition Do Us a Disservice?

Love. Debates abound about what the word means. Take for example the various Ancient Greek words for love and their definitions:

Storge means affection. You might use this word in a parental sense, when you’re putting up with a relative who is “acting out.” “Ya gotta love that kid.”

Philia refers to mental love. Another interpretation might be a dispassionate love driven by a person’s virtue or loyalty toward a close friend. “I really love that guy.”

Éros is about passionate love. Surprisingly, in ancient Greek it was also used in a higher form, referring to the soul recalling experience that contributed to the understanding of spiritual truths – a lover of wisdom. (Plato’s Symposium – speech by Socrates)

Agápe represents a deeper sense of true unconditional love.

Some of the Greek definitions would run counter to many of today’s Human Resources policies intended to ensure an appropriate and neutral work environment. This presents some challenges for using the word love or loving as a leadership quality.

Let’s look at deeper aspects of loving.

There are five attributes that are in alignment with leading: acceptance, reverence, presence, courage and gratitude. Presence, courage and gratitude have been written about extensively as virtues of wise leaders. The other two are less frequently addressed, though no less important.

Acceptance – For this discussion, we are considering acceptance as harmonizing with the current reality. It is a coming into alignment with what is actually going on, instead of trying to diminish its reality, wishing things were otherwise, or railing against the unfairness of how things are. Acceptance is a great teacher that helps us recognize multiple perspectives. The challenge for many leaders comes from their ego declaration that their perspective is the only correct or authentic one. Acceptance may require that the leader learn to quiet his or her ego.

As we move toward a world of collaboration and away from command and control, acceptance is becoming increasingly valuable as the first step towards interpersonal understanding.

Some interpretations of the word acceptance have come to mean acquiescence. We are not suggesting that accepting is the same as agreement. It’s not. It is simply a recognition of other people’s perspectives while dialoging with them. We accept that they hold a valid point of view different from ours.

Reverence – This word was originally one of the primary virtues espoused by ancient Greek and Chinese cultures. It means deep respect, with perhaps a bit of awe. Today, reverence is primarily used in a religious context.

However, focusing on the core construct of deep respect has value within a leadership context. Holding deep respect–reverence–for another allows clearer communication to take place. If we hold judgment towards another person, that judgment acts as a filter that can disrupt communication.

Together acceptance and reverence create a clear channel for enhanced interpersonal communication. Both are needed in today’s leaders. Carl Rogers Unconditional Positive Regard is a compassionate example of this.

Now to our take on the other aspects.

Presence – Often how “presence” is described and how a person can develop it, more accurately matches the definition of charisma. However, at its simplest definition a person is present when their attention is fully focused in (present with) a particular moment of time.

It’s simple, but not easy for most of us to do. We may have flashes of being present, but our imagination, emotions and mind are all designed to call our attention to their moment-to-moment desires. How often have you been in a conversation with a close friend and had to ask that something be repeated because you didn’t hear it? Your mind may have slipped off to something else, and you were no longer present with them.

Courage – Leadership courage has been written about for eons. Both loving and courage have a similar root: heart. Heart isn’t often found in today’s leadership education because that mostly focuses on the mind. However, we contend that leadership wisdom requires our mind, our heart and our hunches. It takes courage to engage our heart and to confront fear (our own or others’), pain, danger, uncertainty or perhaps intimidation (another fear-based behavior).

Gratitude – This is the quality of being thankful. If we tie being thankful with recognition toward the person whose action we are being thankful for, we create an organizational culture that is twelve times more likely to enjoy strong business results (see Bersin & Associates). Gratitude simply says to others that our success didn’t happen solely as a result of “my” stellar leadership abilities.

Simple Not Easy

These five simple “ways of being” help bring forward more loving in our leadership. They require we open our hearts more widely to those we are leading. They are not complex, but they challenge our comfort zones. And, in this context, they re-define and clarify the definition of loving leadership so that being a loving leader can be an acceptable, worthy and desirable goal.

I welcome your thoughts and comments on what we’ve presented so far.

This article was originally published in Forbes Magazine in 2018.