Leading with love

In 2019 Helena Clayton of the Roffey Park Institute published her research into the importance of love in leadership. After interviewing more than 75 directors, CEOs and senior managers across a range of industries she found that ‘love’, although as a word and concept is awkward for many to discuss, is essential to effective leadership. 

Helena says:

“I have a current working definition which allows us to make a meaningful connection between love and our organisational life, which is love as ‘radical acceptance’. 

Acceptance because it comes through as such a powerful theme in the literature and research no matter where we look and maybe is best encapsulated in Carl Rogers’ (1967) Unconditional Positive Regard as the clearest summary.  How, in our organisations can we accept everything someone is and not reject it, or them? How, as in the world of improvisation, can we treat everything as if it’s an offer and find a way to say ‘yes, and’ instead of ‘yes, but’ (Johnstone 1981). How can we create the conditions in our teams and beyond to make everything welcome? 

But it’s more than that for me. It’s also radical. Radical also means extreme and it seems to me that love demands that we really put ourselves out, dig deep, and sacrifice something. We have to overcome something in ourselves, and we need to be brave in order to love those who are not like us, who are not our family, who we disagree with, or who may have hurt us or who we have been randomly assigned to work with. Radical demands institutional change.  Radical lays down an invitation for us to be bold and take risks. Love is bold and risky and revolutionary – which is exactly what’s needed for the future of our work and indeed humanity. Tough times call for radical approaches. 

So, from this short survey, it seems that the desire for love is strong and the rewards of leading from love are clearly there, for both people and organisations. The research showed those rewards were really worth striving for and it indicates that love could be at the heart of unlocking them. And yet it’s clearly problematic, takes conscious choice and involves risk as well as reward.” 

You can read Helena’s full survey findings here:

https://helenaclayton.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Roffey-Park-Institute-Leadership-and-Love.pdf