I chimed in on a LinkedIn discussion this morning asking if there was a relationship between leadership and the capacity to love. Too many people I think associate love with only romantic love, or the love you would have for a family member. As leaders, love means truly caring for your people, and this caring must be authentic. Have you ever worked for a leader who didn’t care about you? Took no interest in you as a person? It doesn’t take long to figure this out. This is not effective leadership. How can you work toward excellence when you don’t feel valued by the leader?
Leaders should not be embarassed to love their people. It is not a soft topic. It takes guts to be honest, real, and transparent with those you lead. This simply means that you care about them, you want the best for them, you want to provide a stimulating, challenging, and healthy work environment, and most of all you want them to succeed! We all want to be valued, respected, and loved. Who doesn’t? And not just for our job performance, but for being a human being and a contributing member of the team. Do you want your people to work harder, exhibit more teamwork, and improve morale? Do you want to inflate your people or deflate them? Show them some love.