One Small Practice That Can Transform Your Leadership
Every meeting, every interaction, is a chance to quietly shape the culture with love — if you plan for it.
A core practice of Loving Leadership is to intentionally plan for the loving actions, words, and mindsets needed for any given situation. Afterall, emotional intelligence is needed to wisely meet people with care and act in service of the highest good. This is no small thing.
Sometimes we can naturally and easily anticipate what’s needed in a team meeting or one on one: It’s Gail’s birthday. Tom’s dog died. Juan worked extra hard to make sure the team met its goals last month. It’s Ariel’s first week on the job.
In these cases, planning for love may be as simple as pausing to list these things out and envisioning what you’ll say and do, what you’ll invite others to say and do. The more we know our team members as people, the easier and more natural this process is.
Other times, we know love will be needed, but we don’t know exactly what form it needs to take. We can’t plan for the specifics. Betty’s been distracted and not herself lately. There’s unspoken tension on the team. Phil wants to meet to ask an important question, but you don’t know what it’s about.
In these cases, planning for love means getting yourself ready to be present and bring your best self to each situation so you can listen and observe, activate your empathy, and take the compassionate action needed. Responding in love, not reacting in fear.
Several practices can help.
You can try getting grounded beforehand, connecting to your heart and to the humanity of those you’re meeting.
You can also set aside time before the meeting to prepare yourself, going for a walk to clear your head and move any residual energy out of your body.
You can eat so that you aren’t hangry.
You can get enough sleep the night before.
Notice that many of these are all directly tied to Loving Yourself.
Afterall, YOU are your primary leadership instrument. So bringing yourself in your best condition, present, connected, and self-aware to an unknown or challenging situation is your most important practice. Any other skills or knowledge you have will be able to flow when you bring yourself as a whole human.
