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For many of us, our default state isn't love; it's fear. Picture, for a moment, 7 billion human beings walking around the planet, heads down, eyes averting the gaze of others, hiding behind insecurities and past pain points, hovering under the radar, and just trying to blend in.
Why do we live this way?
We All Have A Desire For Love
What one human attribute do we seek most in our lives, from birth to death? Most would agree that it's the desire to find love, to share love, and to enjoy the warmth of another's love.
What happens when you turn your love light on? No, not the light in your bedroom, living room, or kitchen, but the light within. Most people live their lives with their lights dimmed or, in so many cases, turned off completely.
In Leadership, Love Is Vital
In transformative leadership, nothing is more vital than the ability to lead with love. Over my years working as an executive in the banking industry, I frequently chose to bring this unusual concept forward with my peers and in my development of future leaders.
Have you considered how leading with love can transform your leadership? To best understand the power associated with this principle, you need look no further than yourself and your own deepest needs.
Living without genuine love is a life of darkness—creating an environment that stifles passion, ingenuity, and ideas. In contrast, those who embrace love, compassion, and understanding find their lives blooming with fulfillment and abundance.
When you think about it, it's nonsensical to imagine that leading with anything other than love could be an effective way to run a business, especially one where employees deal directly with customers. Yet we talk around the subject, carefully ensuring that we don't leap into the netherworld of leading from the heart.
In the corporate arena, we devote lots of time to doing "what's right for the customer." But do we genuinely care for our customers and treat them as we should? In most organizations, customer service is measured ever so carefully against accepted financial practices typically aimed at minimizing customer benefit, even when in response to a company error.
Before we can successfully have an organization dedicated to providing this level of accountability to our customers, we must first attend with genuine care to those we serve, so that they, in turn, can do the same with others.
Five Ways To Start Leading From The Heart
1. Be authentic and present.
Leading from the heart isn't as hard as you might think. You may think it will take too much time or create an impression of weakness. This is a fallacy of grave proportion.
When you, as a leader, take the time to stop and engage authentically with an employee, actually caring for him or her by giving your full attention and being present, there's a visceral exchange of genuineness and love. Doesn't it make practical sense that to be successful—to bring out the best in your employees—you'd act in ways that show you care?
2. Be aware.
Complacency and mediocrity are choices you make every time you choose fear over love.
Instead, concentrate on being aware. When you are aware of being aware, you step into consciousness. And it's from this position of consciousness that you can exercise your right to choose love over fear.
3. Invest in human connections.
While it's a fact that automation and AI will dramatically change the world we operate in, the need for human connection won't change.
Today's management systems are built to prioritize shareholder value, commoditizing human beings as numbers or widgets. But what these systems fail to recognize is that great opportunities exist when you place value on the lives of those actually doing the work.
4. Ask for help.
Leading with love is not for the faint of heart. It requires you to have courage and, at times, to strap yourself in for a ride. Unraveling the gnarly knots of fear and pain sometimes requires the skilled expertise of a loving coach. Shining your love light will pay dividends to those you lead and serve. Don hesitate to seek help if you need it.
5. Feed your soul.
Being a love leader means supporting the whole person—yourself included.
We are, as Edgar Cayce described, triune selves of body, mind, and spirit. To outwardly express love, understanding, and compassion requires an internal compass that is centered and loving. Nurture and feed your soul so that you pay it forward as the love leader you are.
Don't forget your light switch. Turn it on and turn it up. Wake up and live fully illuminated.
©2020 by Michael Bianco-Splann. All Rights Reserved.
Book by this Author
Dying to Live: A Tapestry of Reinvention
by Michael Bianco-Splann
This is a true story of resilience, courage and the power of choice. After the publication of Conscious Leadership: 7 Principles That Will Change Your Business and Change Your Life, many inquired as to how these principles were formed. Dying to Live is a compelling account of the author's life stories, from abandonment to enlightenment, shared with sensitivity, illumination and humor. Along the journey, great lessons emerged, creating the building blocks of conscious leadership and a life centered on the power of choosing love, compassion and understanding. (Also available as a Kindle edition.)
Another book by this Author: Conscious Leadership: 7 Principles That Will Change Your Business and Change Your Life
About the Author
Michael Bianco-Splann is a conscious leadership expert, inspirational speaker, and master certified corporate trainer with over 30 years of frontline executive experience. He offers a transformative approach to leadership—within Fortune 100 companies to small boutique enterprises—for those seeking a life that's true to one's passion and purpose. He is the author of Conscious Leadership: 7 Principles That Will Change Your Business and Change Your Life and Dying to Live: A Tapestry of Reinvention. Learn more at illuminateambitions.com.
