Thursday's Leadership Insight: The Power of Relationship in Your Leadership Practice - Leading in Love

?"We know better than this!! Investing in and caring for people is the key to doing great things for customers."

Hubert Joly

Love is a basic need and a part of all we do as humans. Love and leadership are sometimes misunderstood yet deeply intertwined. Love is caring for those a leader leads. Simon Sinek often says Leadership is not about being in charge. It is about taking care of those in your charge".This week, 2.38 Billion Christians celebrate Easter, Christ's life, death, and resurrection. The foundational element of this season's celebration and Christian faith is love. The leadership of Jesus Christ demonstrated love. The word love is used in the Bible between? 442 ?to 759 times, depending on the translation. Love is the foundation of all faiths practiced in the world today. The word love is used 197 times, and heart is used 132 times in the Qur'an, according to? The Islam Stack Exchange; at a recent International Maxwell Conference presentation on Maxwell D.N.A., John Maxwell stressed to all present that all faiths are based on love and practice the "Golden Rule."He further reminded all that as leaders, we must choose to practice love by adding value to all people. As demonstrated by Gandhi and Dr King, love is a powerful force that changes the world. Love is a powerful foundational element for all leaders in the relationships they build in their practice today. Today, love is not always seen in leadership or society as a whole. We seem to be in a social, business, and political environment at a time when the opposite is advocated. This is a great time to consider how the power of leadership in relationships is enhanced and transformed by leading in love.

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"No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care."?

??????????? President Theodore Roosevelt

?This Thursday's leadership insight will examine what love means in the workplace. Several examples of how a leader's demonstration of love affects the leader and the organization will be shared. The acronym L.O.V.E. will be used as a guide for a leader to enhance leading in love. First, what do we mean by love in our leadership practice? Love can be defined in many ways. In his latest book, Love+ Work, and a recent Live2Lead leadership learning experience? presentation, Marcus Buckingham ?defined love as "the deep and unwavering commitment to the flourishing of a human."

In a recent Harvard Business Review article, Marcus Buckingham: Why "Love" Is the Key to Career Success, he writes 'love for leaders, as in all relationships, there is a strong desire to show people they are seen and to want those you lead to be bigger to reach their potential. He also notes that this sometimes means tough love. Buckingham recommends that this is reinforced by frequent check-ins. He states, "What the best managers seem to realize is I will talk to you weekly. I've called it a check-in in the book, but it's 15 minutes of two questions. "Hey, ___, what did you love last week and hate? And then, what are you focused on this week? How can I help?"

"Needless to say, you can love people without leading them, but you can not lead them without loving them."

John Maxwell

?A leader who leads with love will build people up and accomplish things. Theodore Roosevelt underscored this almost 100 years ago, saying, "People don't care much what you know until they know how much you care."

?In A Blog for the Most Loved Workplace, by Louis Carter, What is the Psychology of Love in Leadership? "Leading with love is the key to success. Understanding and caring about what motivates and empowers others is essential to leading with love. Love is about respecting individuals' differences and their processes for growth. It is about caring enough to understand what is significant to them and supporting them in achieving their goals. The secret to leadership effectiveness is to lead with love. Love the people you lead, and your leadership effectiveness will improve dramatically."

In the Army University Press August 2022 N.C.O. Journal article by Sgt. Maj. Anson C. Jordan Sr entitled Love and Leadership, writes, "When defining leadership and its principles, words such as influence, character, presence, develop, direction, and motivation are usually at the forefront. However, one word you may not hear often is love. Most associate the term with sentimental emotions involved in a relationship or marriage and not with a military leadership style. However, love and leadership are intertwined. The Servant Leadership Model, one of the leadership models adopted by the U.S. Army, lists love as one of its foundational principles. Many successful businesses understand the power of love in leadership. "The logo of Southwest Airlines is the Southwest Heart. Its most prominent color is warm red, as stated in a 2020 blog. It is intentionally the most prominent color in the Heart, representing the warmth of our Hospitality and the Customer Service we deliver daily. " During a recent podcast of the Maxwell Leadership Corporate Facilitators group, faculty member Dana McArthur reported that Chick-fil-A, a company with a renowned reputation for showing care, was expanding training to find more occasions to show care in their restaurants. Starbucks founder Howard Schultz built the company on being in "the people business serving coffee." Mary Kay Ash founded Mary Kay Cosmetics based on the golden rule and the priorities of God, Family, and business to enrich women's lives. They are now the world's number-one Color Cosmetics and Skin Care company. Mary Kay often said the P&L Statement meant People & Love. Ryan Central Incorporated Central of Janesville, Wisconsin, began providing earthwork services in 1884 with a single mule train scraping land for railroad embankments. The company owners clearly cite their story is based on "Big Company Resources, Small Company Values. "These values and caring for all they serve are the foundation of their success. Today, as their website notes," Ryan Incorporated Central is one of the nation's largest site-work contractors. Throughout its' 130-year-plus history, it has remained committed to safety, excellent work, customer service, and professional integrity. We pride ourselves on the ability to conduct site grading/site preparation throughout the more than 25 states we work in." Ryan focuses on regional operations managers with resources and support to complete their work with rigorous standards. Their support of local contractor groups? I have worked with shows this desire to serve various regions.

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Marcus Buckingham, in his bestseller Love+ Work, Writes Love + Work. Organizations can build trust by actually paying attention to and caring for employees through their team leaders. He states that love is a key to personal and organizational success. He cites studies of Mayo Clinic doctors that show that if love can be a daily part of their work lives, they are less likely to experience burnout. In The Heart of Business, Hubert Joly writes how simple acts of caring (love) helped turn around Best Buy because it increased worker buy-in to better serve customers. He wrote, "We know better than this. Investing in and caring for people is the key to doing great things for customers."

On the other hand, Gallup and Buckingham's organization studies reports record low worker engagement across industries and internationally. In another study, Gallup study reported, "Only 25% of U.S. employees strongly agree that their organization cares about their overall well-being and 63% of U.S. workers say that having greater work-life balance and better personal well-being is very important to them when considering whether to take a job with a different organization.'.Most surveyed felt their leader didn't show they cared for the workers' well-being. Conversely, Studies where a high degree of care was reported showed increased engagement, productivity, and retention .R3 Continuum, in their 2024 Trends Report, notes, "In fact, employees who strongly agree that their employer cares about their overall well-being, compared with other employees, are:

69% less likely to actively search for a new job.

71% less likely to report experiencing a lot of burnout.

36% more likely to be thriving in their overall lives.

The secret to leadership effectiveness is to lead with love. Love the people you lead, and your leadership effectiveness will improve dramatically. Leaders who want to build love into their leadership must learn to love themselves. In an XMonks blog, Leading With Love: Why Love is the Heart of Leadership, author Amisha Yadav writes, "Love is the foundational tenet of all great traditions throughout history, and the importance of caring for one another has never been greater with a global population of nearly eight billion people. Love is crucial in leadership, as self-love is the first step towards leading with love, and a strong foundation of self-compassion and love contributes to the efficacy of leaders. To be a loving leader, you must be aware of and invested in the things that motivate and encourage your followers. It involves knowing what is essential to them and assisting them in achieving success. Leading with love is the cornerstone of effective leadership. To be an effective leader, you must love those you lead."

?The acronym L.O.V.E. guides any leader choosing to enhance their leadership practice in love.

L. Love yourself and others by looking around, listening, and learning about yourself and those you lead. A leader's presence is powerful.

O. Observe those you lead and seek opportunities to demonstrate care. A leader's choice to be a curious learner motivated to grow leaders will demonstrate care.

V. Value all and continuously seek to add value to those you lead. The leader's choice to focus on adding value builds up all in the organization and those it serves, as well as the leader.

E. Empower others by connecting and engaging with empathy and encouragement. The leader who empowers followers to be their best resource and equips them to do their job excellently builds trust and connection

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Love is a force that has shaped the world. Love is foundational to building powerful relationships that connect, engage, and aid learning in building people up in one's leadership practice. Marcus Buckingham, in a Harvard Business Review article Designing Work That People Love, notes that leadership is key. He writes, "Love + Work organizations build trust by actually paying attention to employees through their team leaders. "The L.O.V.E. Model provides a leader who chooses to lead in love with an intentional guide that can be adjusted to meet followers and organizational needs and be a model to gauge progress. The key is to look at yourself as a leader and choose to lead in love.

The leadership question for you is,

Will you choose to lead in love following the L.O.V.E. guide?

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