One of the books I had to read when I was doing my Masters Degree in Leadership was “The Leadership Challenge” by Kouzes & Posner. That book has stayed in the back of my mind through many different situations and scenarios, but probably one of the most impactful memories I have from the book stems from this quote:

8_Services_Testimonial Quote Parchment.png — “We asked John how he’d go about developing leaders, whether in colleges and universities, in the military, in government, in the non-profit sector, or in private business. He replied, “When anyone asks me that question, I tell them I have the secret to success in life. The secret to success is to stay in love. Staying in love gives you the fire to ignite other people, to see inside other people, to have a greater desire to get things done than other people. A person who is not in love doesn’t really feel the kind of excitement that helps them to get ahead and to lead others and to achieve. I don’t know any other fire, any other thing in life that is more exhilarating and is more positive a feeling than love is.”
“Staying in love” isn’t the answer we expected to get - at least not when we began our study of leadership. But after researching leadership for over thirty years, through thousands of interviews and case analyses, we are constantly reminded of how many leaders use the word love freely when talking about their own motivations to lead. Of all the things that sustain a leader over time, love is the most lasting. It’s hard to imagine leaders getting up day after day, putting in the long hours and hard work it takes to get extraordinary things done, without having their hearts in it. The best-kept secret of successful leaders is love: staying in love with leading, with the people who do the work, with what their organizations produce, and with those who honour the organizations by using its products and services. Leadership is not an affair of the head. Leadership is an affair of the heart.”

Why Love Is Important In My Work

I can still picture my mind exploding after reading this quote. It’s something I had been thinking about for years already, and here it was in print! I had to quickly highlight it before I rushed over to my laptop, sat down, and feverishly typed it out in an email so that I could send it to some of my colleagues at the time.

What resonated with me? It speaks to the work that I get to do Every. Single. Day.

Every time I’m with a client, I get the honour of hearing their stories and experiences. Each time, it stirs something in my heart. It’s not uncommon for me to be with a client and have something stir in my heart as it says I get to serve these people where they are at in their lives and journey alongside them to where they want to be. There’s something special in that. It’s an incredible privilege. And I wouldn’t be able to do it if I didn’t love them for who they are.

If it weren’t for love, my clients wouldn’t be in a safe place. They wouldn’t be able to be vulnerable for fear of being judged. They wouldn’t have a chance to get comfortably uncomfortable in my presence for fear of repercussions. There’s something about love that puts people at ease because they can be themselves. Beautiful and Broken.

Staying in Love

Staying in love isn’t easy, though. People say things and do things that leave us with this gross taste in our mouths. It’s easy to find fault in others because nobody is perfect. We’ll always find what it is that we’re searching for in others - both negative or positive. When we find ourselves in that mindset, it becomes easy to pick on anything and everything about the person - the clothes they wear, the sound of their voice, how they laugh, the smell they have, it becomes easy to assign our own meaning to their actions.

Whenever I feel myself drifting into this mindset (and yes, it happens!), I take a hard look at the judgements I’m casting and ask myself, is this true or is this a story I’m telling myself? It’s easy for us to fall into a mindset of judgement, so when I feel myself doing so, I try and shift my mindset to a spirit of curiosity. When we are curious, it’s difficult for us not to love. When we are in a place of gratitude, it’s difficult not to love others.

For some, this practice of love is difficult to maintain. That is when I have to remind myself - they are just a human as well; they are full of quirks that may be annoying, blindspots they may not see, and brokenness that they may not have yet faced. AND they are still worthy of love. Our brokenness or challenges do not take that away from any of us.

So how can we start shifting this mindset?