Leading With Love: Just Say It is an indispensable resource for leaders and teachers of schools of any kind. It provides practical advice for leading with love and shows how focusing on relationships, wellbeing, core moral/ethical values can make schools stronger than ever before.
Love leadership is a philosophy grounded in biblical agape as described in 1 Corinthians 13 and works towards ideal relationships in which both leaders and followers show signs of agape love in their actions and interactions.
Focus on the People
One of the key responsibilities of leaders is ensuring their staff feel secure. This requires time and energy; but ultimately it pays off in terms of increased productivity, loyalty and engagement as well as higher morale, lower turnover rates, and increased profitability.
With numerous books about leadership qualities like courage, charisma, discipline and vision available today, none address love as an essential component of service – yet the New Testament makes clear that without love your service counts for nothing (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
An effective workplace requires leaders who foster an atmosphere of love. They must be patient and kind (without condoning poor behavior), trusting and unselfish, honest and committed, forgiving and dedicated – qualities which often don’t translate directly to an investment spreadsheet but can change teams, organizations and whole communities for the better.
Many leaders fear being labeled as weak or soft leaders. They fear this perception will diminish their reputation of strength and hard work; yet leading with love does not degrade your respectability as a strong leader – instead it demonstrates your dedication to your team’s welfare and their success, rather than care about preserving your own egocentric reputation.
Victoria Carr shows how an emphasis on relationships, wellbeing, and core moral and ethical values can transform failing schools into successful ones, improving whole school systems, staff and pupil happiness, academic standards and overall standards of performance. She uses personal life lessons, leadership observations and anecdotes as examples to demonstrate how Agape Principles can be put into action on a practical basis.
Develop a Culture of Professional Diastole
Many books on leadership typically focus on courage, vision, discipline and decisiveness while rarely discussing love as an aspect of leadership. Yet according to New Testament Christian faith leaders must exhibit agape love (biblical love). Affectionate leaders can create workplace cultures where employees feel safe and cared for while working toward a common purpose with personal professional growth as a common goal.
Establishing a culture of professional dialogue means providing your team with an environment in which they feel safe to open up about themselves and identify any weaknesses and offer solutions. Trusting one another enough to share sensitive information or challenge decisions from senior leadership is also vital. Though these strategies may feel awkward at times, their results can be transformative: leaders who take the time to invest in the emotional well-being of their teams can alter workplace culture while amplifying policies and procedures which foster creativity, productivity and innovation among employees.
At Dialogue, managers work proactively to establish career paths and development plans for high performers so they are prepared to grow within the organization. Additionally, “stay interviews” are conducted in order to assess why such employees stay with us or leave; these interviews serve to create a retention strategy and the return on this investment is nonlinear yet difficult to quantify in numbers – yet its positive results make a dramatic difference in team dynamics and outcomes achieved.
Foster Relational Trust
Leading with love means focusing on people rather than systems and procedures of an organization; building trust with staff, parents and pupils through honesty, integrity and upholding core moral and ethical values is at the core of this approach. This strategy has proven transformative by turning failing schools into successful ones while improving whole school systems, culture of staff wellbeing and happiness and standard raising.
Leading with Love (LL) is a leadership philosophy grounded in biblical agape and described in 1 Corinthians 13. Its primary tenet entails leaders loving those they lead and being patient, kind, trusting, unselfish, truthful, forgiving and dedicated – these behaviors allow teams to have difficult discussions without feeling intimidated; address weaknesses without giving in; ultimately changing organizations and lives along the way.
Many books focus on courage, charisma, vision and discipline – all essential elements for effective leadership – yet few address love specifically, an oversight which should not be neglected since according to Scripture (1 Corinthians 13:3) service without love is rendered futile (1 Corinthians 13:3). Showing genuine concern and care for those you lead doesn’t reduce your respectability or reputation as a strong leader but instead sends a powerful message: they matter.
Make Sure the Right People Are in the Right Seats on the Bus
One of the best concepts I have seen for team building is Jim Collins’ bus metaphor in Good to Great. According to this framework, leaders of companies that transition from good to great begin their transformation not by setting an explicit direction but by getting the appropriate people on and off of their bus.
This means evaluating each employee to ensure their core values align with those of your organization, and then placing them accordingly. You want people who think three steps ahead and feel responsible for keeping the bus going where it needs to. They should have an interest in making this world a better place rather than seeking wealth or recognition for themselves alone.
Collins notes the difficulty in hiring the ideal person for your company – they may even be sitting in the right seat – yet still not be fulfilling their ideal role. Therefore, once found they must be assigned their desired role and given access to resources and tools necessary for performing it effectively; otherwise they need to be removed quickly from your payroll.
Renee Smith, as founder and CEO of A Human Workplace, advocates for making work more loving and human. She researches, writes, and speaks internationally on leadership, diversity, and inclusion issues – especially how loving at work – is bold, powerful and equitable; changing teams, organizations, communities and lives for the better! Renee also co-founded Women and Girls Lead Coalition.
Administer Policies with Kindness and Common Sense
Leaders have the opportunity to set the tone for how people in their organization are treated. Showing kindness towards employees as part of your organizational culture and taking a servant leadership approach that prioritizes people over profits are ways you can foster a culture in which employees can feel supported by one another.
And leaders who practice kindness and create an inclusive culture see enhanced business results, including increased employee engagement, higher productivity, and stronger commitment to organizational values. Though these benefits are difficult to measure in numbers on a spreadsheet, their return is definitely worth investing in.
Leaders who lead with love tend to make wiser decisions that benefit the welfare of their team members, such as cutting overtime hours. Furthermore, these leaders encourage managers to listen and respond to employee feedback – this enables employees to take ownership over their performance and development which results in higher employee satisfaction and productivity levels.
Employees also understand that acknowledging small acts of kindness performed by their team members is one of the best ways to reinforce positive behavior and strengthen relationships. This could include something as straightforward as publicly thanking an employee, or more involved activities like giving an employee a special bonus for performing random acts of kindness.
Kindness is a fundamental soft skill of leadership that cannot be taken for granted. Kindness should never be underestimated as a powerful investment that never goes to waste; invest now and reap its benefits later! This book gives leaders and teachers an understanding of what the Bible teaches about love.