The Heavy Lifting of Loving Leadership

This blog was originally shared as an email with the Loving Leaders community. If you'd like to hear from Renée every week, directly in your inbox, you can sign up for the emails here.

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Today I’m reflecting on something Tara Smith said. She’s the former Director at the Washington State Department of Enterprise Services. Simon and I interviewed her on the Love Lead Change podcast, featured in the episode, “Public Sector Leadership Transformed.” Hmmm, now there's a timely topic!

A week or so prior to recording each episode, Simon and I spend an hour with each guest so they can reflect on their leadership through the lens of the Loving Leaders Framework. This gives us the chance to get to know them better so we can draw out their stories and examples. It helps them to know us and understand what we mean by Loving Leadership too.

All this gives us an abundance of insights. Some make it to the podcast, some will end up in my book, and others leave Simon and me pondering for days!

Meeting Tara (at long last!) was a full circle moment for me. Many of you know that my work advocating for Love began at the Department of Enterprise Services in Washington State, prompted by then Director Chris Liu’s declaration to me that, “It is a leader’s job to eliminate fear from the workplace.” 

I came to realize that fear must be replaced with love; I began my research and advocacy for loving workplaces while at DES in 2015. So imagine my joy when in 2021, I learned that DES had a new director, Tara Smith, who was advocating for Love as the agency’s core value!

In our conversations, Tara revealed the depth of her commitment to love and her mature, thoughtful grappling with what love in practice requires: Not only demonstrating interpersonal care and emotional intelligence supported by self-love practices, but systematically embedding love in organizational policies, processes, and structures. Consider these examples:

Tara was intentional about onboarding new employees

Tara transformed DES’s onboarding process by aligning all divisions to start new employees on the same day, ensuring consistency and connection. She personally attended new employee orientations to introduce herself and share her values, making employees feel seen and valued as they joined.

She fostered growth & learning

Tara asked Assistant Directors how she could support them, and they requested "stretch goals." She provided challenges, coaching, and training but also recognized that not everyone was ready to step up to this at the same time. She trusted in them and continued to offer opportunities, "I’ll keep offering stretch goals, even if someone isn’t ready. If they articulated it, it’s in their DNA somewhere."

She implemented transparent decision-making

Recognizing her team’s need for clarity, she enhanced decision-making transparency, creating mechanisms for input at multiple levels. This shift from top-down to collaborative decision-making strengthened trust across the organization. She said, “People want to know how we’re making decisions. We’ve built a structure where input is part of the process. It’s not just about buy-in—it’s about building in."

 She handled mistakes with compassion

She embraced failure as a learning tool, ensuring accountability without blame. "Fail forward" was and is a guiding principle in her leadership. "People need to know I’ll actually allow them to fail—and that I won’t blame them for it," Tara stated.

 She led through change with care

Tara supported her team through her own leadership transition by fostering open discussions, acknowledging concerns, and providing emotional and logistical support. She created space for impromptu coaching sessions alongside operational strategy and planning. "Change is hard, but I don’t just make structural shifts for the sake of change. I’ve learned that real clarity has to come first."

She celebrates diversity

She was and is deeply committed to building a team with a rich mix of backgrounds and perspectives which is crucial for excellence in public service. "I’m really proud of the team I’m leaving in charge. We built a culture that truly values diversity, and I see the impact of that every day."

Each of these organizational elements actively built trust and safety, shrinking fear and anxiety in the organization.

But it was something else Tara said that stuck with me. She said this:

"It’s hard to hold space for people, build trust, have tough conversations—to do all of this well. Leadership is an assignment, a calling."

She is so right. Such thorough Loving Leadership is a heavy emotional task, requiring endurance, vision, and commitment. It doesn't all happen at once, but over time and with experience, Loving Leaders build emotional muscle to shoulder the weight of this work. And they see ever growing impact and peace too. 

Some of the most meaingful work I've done this year has been working with leaders who were ready to build more Loving Leadership muscle and more nuanced capabilities. (The Loving Leaders Lab Email Challenge is coming up soon and this is the first important step in that journey of building such strength and know now. See more below!)

Finally, Tara was strong in the third component of Loving Leadership, Love Yourself. This is often a struggle for new leaders or for those who come from a culture of heroics or self-sacrifice. But self-immolation doesn’t help us sustain care for others or our organizations! 

If this is a struggle for you too, take a page from Tara’s playbook and begin with good self-care, taking your leave and setting healthy personal boundaries as a starting point, so that you have the strength for the heavy weightlifting done as a Loving Leader. 

I'm sending you my encouragement today that you are on the right path, pursuing Love over fear! Keep it up!