#59: Leading with Love in Difficult Times

You're listening to the Proteus Leader Show with Erika Andersen, where you'll get practical tools and insights for leading, managing, and staying ready for the future. Erika is the founding partner of Proteus, a firm that focuses uniquely on leader readiness. A nationally known executive coach and bestselling author, you may already know her as one of the most popular leadership bloggers on Forbes.com. Ready for something you can use today? Here's Erika.

Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Proteus Leader Show. My guests today are Zena Such and Patrick Malone, co-authors of Leading with Love and Laughter: Letting Go and Getting Real. They both spent their careers helping people to lead well and create positive relationships, and they're now faculty members of the Key Executive Leadership Program in the School of Public Affairs at American University. Especially now, when we're all focusing on how to move forward together in this changed world, I thought their insights would be valuable to all of us. Welcome to the show, Zena and Patrick.

Thank you, Erika.

Thank you very much.

Yeah, I'm so glad to have you. The two of you are fellow Barrett-Kohler authors, and I love that our publisher connected us. And I also believe that love and laughter are critical aspects of good leadership, and that it's more important now than ever before. So let's dig in. You note that talking about love in a leadership book is somewhat risky. Can you help us understand what you mean by love in this context and why it's so important?

Sure. I think one of the hard things we struggled with is what was missing in leadership when we were interacting with many leaders, executives at all levels, in all sizes of organizations. And we kept saying there's something about certain people and the way that they lead that make them exceptional. And we came to this idea that there is this love that they have, whether it's love for each other, love for humanity, love for their employees, even love for self. And I was telling Patrick, I said, you know, why hasn't anybody written a book about love in the workplace? And that leaders need to be able to love when they are working and trying to get people to do the work that they need them to do. And Patrick's like, Well, why don't we write that book? And I said, let's do it, right? And then, and then, um, I even floated the word, you know, the title kind of to my mother, and she said, oh no, no, no, you cannot write a book with love on the title. She said, can you imagine what everyone's going to think? And that's where we said, oh, it's risky.

And she was right, because the first research we did, we put love— and we don't recommend this to your listeners— don't put love and work in the same Google search, or love at work, or love while at work. Those are not good things because you're going to get about relationships and horrible things.

So it was a little—

then we were thinking, well, maybe wait a minute. So what do we really mean by love? And, and like Xena said, you know, part of it is a passion, but it's also a— it's a mutual healthy respect and caring for those around us and for ourselves.

And we, and we realized, you know, you love your kids, you love your family members, you love your friends. So what is stopping us from loving the people that work with us, that work for us, that work around us? And so I think that, that, that was what we meant when we said it was risky. And what we tried to do is really help people identify what we mean by defining all the different ways in which we can describe love. And so we focus mostly on the first step, which is loving yourself. And people who can learn to truly love themselves with all their flaws, all of those things about us, you know, that maybe not so great, or we may not think are so great, and we can still accept and love ourselves. That's when you can start loving others and loving the whole person.

I love that. You know, as you guys are talking, I was— I don't know why my mind went here, but in Greek, there are many different words for love, for all the different kinds of love. You know, thousands of years ago, people understood that love is way too vast a word to be contained in a single word. Right?

Exactly.

And so I love that you guys are pulling that out, and I really like starting with loving yourself. What you just said, Zena, has absolutely been my experience, that if I don't feel affection, respect, caring, confidence even in myself, it is virtually impossible for me to love anybody else, and I think people know that kind of interpersonally. It's hard to have a love relationship if you don't love yourself, but it's great that you're pointing out that it's also true at work. So then what— how— tell me the next step. So you have to start with loving yourself, and then what?

And then you have to start experimenting, trying to ask yourself some questions as to why it— what is stopping you from being able to experience this in the workplace? What are the barriers you've put up? You know, what perceptions of self have you coated yourself with so that it creates a barrier between you and the other people in your workspace and what is it that's preventing you from trying to break through that? And it's a lot of self-discovery.

It is, yeah. In fact, we're big advocates of self-awareness and emotional intelligence and mindfulness. And one of the things that we recommend to leaders and to managers is, look, think about what does love look like to you? When someone asks you to define love, what resonates with you? What does it look like in your life? And where in your life do you see it? You see it. And if we can find the places in our life where we see love, where we feel love, and we feel the joy that love can bring, then it's a lot easier to replicate that with those that we lead and those that are our colleagues and even those we work for. We got to love our bosses too.

I really love that, Patrick. We often encourage people when they're trying to— like, for instance, when I feel that curiosity is a key element of learning, right? And so when somebody says, I'm not sure I I'm in touch with my curiosity, I say, well, think of something in your life that you're curious about. And for a lot of people, it's their hobbies, right? So how do you feel when you're thinking about French wine or swing dancing? What goes on inside?

Great example.

So, right? So I love that, like encouraging people to think about where love is in their lives in a positive way. And how does that feel to them? That's wonderful. So then what's the opposite of this? What gets in the way of leading with love at work?

Well, I mean, I think a lot of things. One is this perception of self. We see ourselves if we're a leader and we have that title and we have perceptions from our history, from the examples that we've read about, the people that we have worked for. And we carry this persona when we go into the workplace, especially people who are new to leadership or even those who've just gotten stuck in this rut of I'm the big person in the room and I've got this title and everyone needs to call me by it. Who am I?

Label.

And I think that we get lost in that. It's almost like the ego kind of gets in the way. And then on the other side, there's also a little bit of fear. And the fear of being known, maybe the fear of being discovered for being human.

Of letting go.

Of letting go.

Of getting real.

Of getting real. But I also, you know, I wanna connect this because I'm the realist in this partnership of writing. He's the touchy-feely warm, everybody needs to love everybody. But there's also this component that I think think really resonates with some folks. And that is when you create this in your workspace, like a truly good exceptional leader, their teams outperform other teams.

Yes.

Your productivity, creativity, your output, the impacts that you have on, you know, the work that you do, it's exponential when people feel this gelling with each other and feel that they've got each other's back. They Do you truly care about the entire human being that is there? You know, the human being that may be a mother or a single mother, or there could be, you know, somebody who's got a partnership with somebody who's suffering through something. It's like you really are connecting with the whole human being, which means that whole human being is going to give you their discretionary energy.

Yes.

Their own curiosity, their own emotional energy and commitment to the organization. So you get so much in return that you may not even be aiming for.

Including accountability. And I think one of the biggest barriers that we've seen is that people are afraid that if they show that intimacy, if they let go a little bit, that people are going to take advantage of them and we're not going to be able to hold them accountable in the workplace. But the fact is that workplaces that are marked by love and joy and trust and transparency, it's a lot easier to hold people accountable. And even when you do have to exit them from the organization, it's a lot easier to do because they feel like you're doing it in their best interest and they understand. And you've had conversations, unlike, you know, an organization where that doesn't occur. And then out of nowhere, it's like, I get my pink slip and I'm being told I'm leaving in 2 weeks, right? So there's, there's a ton of organizational advantages to this as well.

I really agree with everything you guys are saying in that, that, that worry that they're going to be taken unfair advantage of. I think that's big. What I find is that those loving leaders— and I'd love to hear you guys' perspective on this— they, they do what we call assuming positive intent. You know, when someone messes up, they don't think, oh, that guy's an idiot, or he's trying to make my life a living hell. Their, their first, their first impulse is kind of, huh, I wonder, wow, we really need to talk. I wonder why that happened. Because they care about them, they believe in them as people. So they're first impulse then is a loving one. It's like, let's sort this out.

Yeah. You know, I, when I became a first-time supervisor, actually it was first time in a, with a big group of folks, I was having struggles with a couple of my team members and I felt like I wasn't connecting and I couldn't figure out why they weren't connecting with me. And I thought, oh, I'm, you know, I'm such a great person and I've got empathy and, you know, and I've been teaching all this Leadership stuff. I, you know, I'm doing it all right. And I went to my supervisor and I said, I don't know what's going on. I cannot connect. This person is just not performing. I can't give them feedback. They fight me back on everything. And she said, are you— well, are you approaching him with an open heart? And I just like took a breath and said, oh my gosh, no, I'm approaching him with my ego, my status, my supervisory you know, title, and I'm getting defensive because I'm afraid he's going to, like, take advantage of me because he's, you know, all of these things, all of these fears of this person seeing me for who I really am. And I completely— I had to go back and I apologized to him and I said, look, you know what, I have been doing you a disservice. You know, I've had my ego in the way. I have been, you know, sitting up here acting like my role is more important than what you and I can build together? And it completely transformed our relationship. And I'm still connected with this person because—

Wow.

That relationship transformed me in a moment. And that's kind of what we're trying to say to people is be that self-aware, ask yourself that question. And if you're getting defensive, then you're not exhibiting self-love, self-confidence, acceptance of self. You're looking to have that title, that status, to stand on some soapbox to say, hooray, look at me, I made it.

Yeah.

And that's what we want people to step down from.

Oh, that's great. Well, so, so my next question, you're kind of already going in this direction. So, so we always promise our listeners kind of practical takeaways. So what— that's a great example. What are some other things that they can start doing right now to lead in this way, to lead with love and laughter?

You know, Erika, this sounds so simple, and that's just because it is. You know, we've seen a lot of different examples. One is, first of all, take a look at your organizational documents. Take a look at your mission statement, your principles, your values, and see how many times the word love is mentioned, or laughter in those documents, or humor, or human, for that matter. Or fun, or joy. Or joy, or grace. You know, are any of those things listed in the documents? Because that's, that's a good starting point to kind of institutionalize it. Think about, you know, what we've seen in terms of things that people have done. There's an I love you wall or an I love it when wall where everyone gets a chance to just jot down. Start off a meeting by saying, hey, listen, I want you to compliment somebody in this room. From the beginning of this meeting, before we get started, say something nice about somebody in the room. And then you look over and you say, yeah, you know, Hakeem, I love it when you do this, man. It's something I really appreciate. And it might be something work-related. It might be something about Hakeem's personality and his smile or just the way he presents presents himself. It could be anything, but just, you know, introduce opportunities going around the room. If, if we're in person, if we're in an office, have a little love note wall where you can say, you know, this is what I appreciate, this is what I love about, about these various things. Um, and, and those are very simple ways to do it, but it's got to be from the heart. You know, it can't be manufactured.

Yes.

Um, it's really got to be something where people are, are given the opportunity to step up and, and be real. And it may take a little bit of time, but it works very, very well.

Those suggestions are so— I'm going to use a word that's going to sound strange, listeners, but so practical. As you're talking, Patrick, I just yesterday— no, Monday— was working with a group, and they were defining their values, a tech group. And one of their 6 values is joy.

Just like kindness begets kindness and trust begets trust, love begets love. And so it isn't something that leaders can It's something that they have to exhibit, and which means that they have to show through their words and their deeds patience and grace and forgiveness.

And vulnerability. And that's where the fun comes in, you know, like a little self-deprecating. Like, show people that you make mistakes and you can laugh at yourself, you know. You can share personal stories where you, you know, you were embarrassed, or, you know, that you can now look back at and make a little fun, poke a little fun at yourself. What that does is it, first of all, it lets people laugh in a very— sometimes in a stressful situation, which relieves a lot of those stress hormones that we don't want. And it also brings the humanity to you as a leader, that you are just as real as they are, and you are just as flawed as they are, and you can make mistakes, but you can accept yourself and your own, and you will accept theirs as well.

Oh, you guys, thank you so much. I, I feel like we could keep talking for For hours. And I always promise our listeners that we're going to keep it short and sweet. So this is such useful stuff and such hopeful stuff that you're saying, especially now. So thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

And to find out more about Zena and Patrick's work, you can go to suchmalone.com. And you can find Leading with Love and Laughter, Letting Go and Getting Real on their website, on Amazon, and in bookstores everywhere. And to find out more about how to make change in your organization that's less painful and, dare I say it, more loving, you can check out my new book, Change from the Inside Out. Thank you for listening, and until next time, here's to creating the life you truly want.

We hope you're feeling better equipped to create the career, the business, and the life you want. For more insights and tools for leadership and management, join us at prettiestleader.com. Have an excellent day, and thanks for listening.