After Self-Awareness and Ingenuity, there comes:
Love.
If a leader speaks the language of self -awareness, but doesn’t have love, they are only a blathering narcissist or a self-absorbed individual. If they have the gift of ingenuity and pursues the spiritual exercises with discipline and effort, and if they are indifferent to attachments but have not love, they are nothing.
According to Chris Lowney in Heroic Leadership, the secret to effective teams is: Love.
Rather than possessing a Machaiavellian worldview of seeing fearful deceivers everywhere, the Jesuits that Lowney studied for his book viewed each person as uniquely endowed with talent and dignity. Partly because they approached people this way, their method for the most part worked. Lowney says: “They [the Jesuits] were energized by working with and for colleagues who valued, trusted, and supported them. Teams were bound by loyalty and affection, not riddled with backstabbing and second-guessing.” (P. 32)
Hundreds of years later, it’s still true that individuals perform best when they are respected, valued and trusted by someone who genuinely cares for their well-being. This is accepted wisdom in the workplace, though it goes by other names. “Everyone knows that organizations, armies, sports teams, and companies perform best when team members respect, value, and trust one another and sacrifice narrow self-interest to support team goals and their colleagues’ success. ” (P. 33)
How does love uncover talent and unite teams, you ask?
Lowney, again: “In today’s business world, love moves the manager who takes the time he or she doesn’t (think they) have to help the adequate employee do better or to initiate the awkward conversation that forces the high-performing fool to confront is or her own grating behavior.” (P.177)
We can all think of supervisors we know who care more about getting their way than about empowering others to walk the way together. Who see people as means to their end, and who abdicate responsibility for growing their people, even when it’s uncomfortable. The Jesuit motivation was to develop others to achieve a common agenda, not use others to achieve a self-interested agenda.
I still remember being a young professional myself and talking to a mentor about how nervous I was to confront someone who worked for me. I didn’t want to be the reason someone came home and said they’d had a bad day. My mentor said: “Michele, you have to understand that you are not serving him well if you don’t talk to him about his mistakes or weaknesses. Part of being a good supervisor is being faithful in the uncomfortable moments. If you really care about him, this conversation is not optional.”
What difference does love make?
Three main differences, according to the book. A company that implements love-driven leadership:
- Refuses no talent, nor anyone of quality. Love-driven companies recognize, honor, and hire the talent that others shun or overlook. Today, those include people with the “wrong” background, skin color, accent, background, or education. Those people are sought ought and welcomed for what they bring that to the table that makes everyone better.
- Runs with all speed toward perfection. Love-driven managers are dedicated to developing untapped potential rather than presiding over a Darwiniam workplace. This reminds me of one of my favorite quotes by Henri Nouwen: “A slow job done together is better than a fast job done alone.” It’s not about what can be done quickest or best, it’s about what we do together.
- Operates with greater love than fear. Love-driven environments make people want to do their best work instead of merely making them work. Because no one works well when they are afraid. Unless their job is to scream in horror movies.
Next time we’ll discuss the fourth and final value of the Jesuits that can be applied to self-leadership today: Heroism. My favorite value! I’m sure there will be references to Harry Potter and Frodo and maybe some of you. See you soon!
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