Love and Leadership

This blog entry is titled “Love and Leadership,” two words that may seem miles apart, except for starting with the same letter. But in all honesty, the best leaders are passionate lovers.

“Love and truth form a good leader; sound leadership is founded on loving integrity.” (Prov. 20:28, MSG)

Love, leadership, truth, integrity. These words seem foreign in business. But they don’t have to be. I’m going to anger some people with this post, but I postulate that the best leaders live by Christian principles. Mind you, they may not be Christians, but many religions follow what I call Christian foundational tenets, the strongest of which is love. Still, as a “worker bee” I stand by my statement – the best leaders in business live and follow Christian principles.

Consider your workplace. Who embodies Christian principles? Which leaders place the workforce above themselves? Which companies foster a culture of people care, honesty, integrity, ethics, safety…and not just because the RIR drives insurance rates? The most successful leaders understand the foundations of Proverbs 20 – love and truth. The leader (not manager) who embodies love as a guiding principle endears the workforce to himself/herself. When workers desire to perform well because of loving leadership the team and the business benefit. When leaders honestly care for the wellbeing of the workforce as much as the profitability of the company the team and the business prosper.

I’ve been told that business, unlike the military, does not deserve loyalty, that there is no room for loyalty in business.

Even as a Marine, whether in garrison “playing games” or deployed projecting force, those units with loving leadership were the most effective. Marines say whenever two Marines come together, one of them is the leader. In other words, every Marine is a leader. You may have also heard about one of the most misunderstood, least written about, and strongest tenets of Marine leadership – junior Marines eat first. People have written books about it. People have built entire leadership seminars around that one tenet. It’s built into the ethos of the most lethal, most animalistic, most successful fighting force in the history of mankind. Marine leaders love Marines. Marine leaders put other Marines first. Marine leaders care for your personal, professional, physical and spiritual health before their own. Marine leaders love.

Marines don’t have a monopoly on servant leadership. It’s engrained into successful leaders everywhere. I know retired US Army officers who embody loving leadership. I know local and state police officers who love above all else. And I know business leaders who are successful in a large part because of loving leadership.

My closest friends and family find it difficult to reconcile loving leadership, servant leadership, and sacrifice for a business when the mantra seems to always be, “the graveyard is full of irreplaceable people.” Servant leaders, loving leaders, are not irreplaceable, just hard to find.

“You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.” (John 13:13-17, NIV)

(Photo courtesy of flickr.com)