Abstract
‘Leading with Love: Rehumanising the Workplace’ aspires to contribute to the debate on how to select and develop leaders with high levels of psychological, cognitive and spiritual maturity. It extends leadership literature through the application of leadership theory to philosophical, religious and spiritual insights. There is clearly a space in the literature for further investigation into the value of wider adoption of a ‘leadership with love’ approach. The only identified similar work in this field is Clayton (2019), who suggests that love might be considered a core leadership competence. Interestingly, Blakeley and Blakeley would seem to counter the competency-based view on the premise that it is something that needs to come naturally occur from within, based on a shift in perspective and mindset. Such diverse views indicate an interesting area for further research and reflection around questions such as whether love is a leadership skill and can therefore be nurtured, or whether it is a personality characteristic that is inherent to an individual’s psychological makeup (which depending on your standpoint, it might or might not be possible to influence).
The book is concerned with developing self-love through the process of self-awakening, self-knowledge, self-acceptance and self-expression. The premise of this is that if leaders do not feel a sense of self-love, this will restrict their capacity to connect and bring out the best in those they lead, which in turn impacts organizations and wider communities. The book comprises 13 chapters over a total of 200 pages, with the first half focused on definitions and context for leading with love and the methodological approach, before moving into more of a developmental focus with practical insights on how to expand capacity to lead with love from a societal, organizational and individual perspective. The introductory chapter articulates why leading with love is needed now in a business context of performativity-driven cultures, which can negatively impact engagement and decision-making. Through an experiential exercise, this is a powerful chapter since it enables the reader to directly engage with emotional awareness. Love is shown to be an important concept since it captures ‘distant’ others, including future generations. The authors recognize that love is not a regular concept associated with organizational life but can be considered as part of the broader movement towards more compassionate and empathetic approaches to leadership. The critical point is raised here that despite extensive literature on more ‘caring’ styles of leadership in contemporary literature, there continues to be a gap between leadership and workplace practice.
In chapter 2, the reader is invited to reflect on individual agency for change and personal contribution for collective impact. The working definition is given as ‘To love is to act intentionally, in sympathetic response to others (including the sacred or the divine), to promote individual and overall well-being’ (p. 22). This captures the core focus on the need for positive intentions, connected to a sense of something ‘bigger than ourselves’ including individual and planetary well-being both now and into the future. Although the text makes some reference to concepts of ‘responsible leadership’, this could perhaps be articulated more robustly to demonstrate the links between ‘leadership with love’ and benefits to people and planet. It appeals to readers looking for connections to the broader development of leadership thinking, links to discussions such as a move away from ‘hero’ to ‘distributed’ forms of leadership. Leadership is articulated from a perspective of mutual influence in that while leaders may exert hierarchical power with which followers may comply, trust and followership can easily be withdrawn. The authors depict power as an egoic need, similar to motivations such as money and status. They found that while their research participants were driven by typical motivators needed to succeed in a competitive business environment, they also had shared clear values around working ‘for something higher than their own self-interest’ (p. 32). Again, it might be interesting to consider an analysis of such values linked to trait-based perspectives on the propensity for an individual to lead with love.
Chapter 3 (‘How to instrumentalize a soul’) examines the economic, technological and sociological trends affecting the workplace. Drawing on contemporary business examples, it sets out how neo-liberalist principles such as free trade, minimal governmental intervention, individualism and free competition have led to the maximization of benefits to shareholder interests. The authors challenge the misconception that it is the legal responsibility of businesses to maximize shareholder value when it is in fact to look after the interests of shareholders. This carries clear leadership implications in terms of maximizing the productivity of human capital and has led to excessive workplace demands based on fear and punishment, electronic surveillance, and abuse of power. Some arguably contentious views are expressed within the book regarding the impact of economic policy on business and society, and the imperative for education to directly address ‘fear-based’ management practices. While this chapter is only loosely linked to leadership principles, it provides key contextual information underpinning the arguments for developing leadership with love, with the simple emotional connection readers can contemplate of whether this is the type of leadership we wish for our children?
This links to discussion in chapter 4 that leading with love requires the highest possible levels of human maturity (wisdom, self-awareness, self-control, self-sacrifice and emotional balance) and should be expected from leaders rather than leading from lower levels of human maturity (fear, reactivity and defensiveness). This is well exemplified with many practical examples of global business practices. A range of adult development theories demonstrate development of thinking which begins with acting from basic impulses, through to leaving a beneficial legacy, and ultimately, acting with a lack of attachment to egoic needs (such as status, wealth or power). A clear mapping is provided which links psychological maturity to leading with love, with high practical application based on a ‘scattergram of behavior’ shifts towards ‘higher states’. The reader here is asked to consider how to help enable organizational systems in which more developmentally mature leaders gain positions of power, rather than selecting and developing leaders high in ‘social dominance orientation’ and susceptibility to ‘hubris syndrome’. This could be extended to discussion on contemporary thinking in leadership such as ‘inclusive leadership’, mapped against adult developmental theory principles and the associated growth of ‘leading with love’ characteristics.
Chapter 5 describes the empirical research which informed the framework for leading with love and brings the focus to how leading with love is already achieved in practice, although it might not have been previously recognized under this terminology. The methodological approach of drawing on professional networks to identify leaders actually nominated by direct reports as leading with love adds confidence in the findings, and is novel and interesting. It is noted that the narrow sample of participants cannot be considered academically representative, but it generated the data needed to inform a framework for leading with love, along with solid examples of how to put ideas into practice. Building on traditional leadership theories, it demonstrates identification and analysis of leadership which is motivated by both task-oriented and people-oriented concerns. The detailed personal accounts presented here, through the presentation of the thematic analysis, provide the reader with a sense of direct engagement with the nominated leaders. The point is made very clearly that such leaders are still motivated by values such as achievement and success, but not at the expense of an underlying, deep-rooted commitment to values around self-respect and compassion, and a vigorous commitment to overcoming blind spots and egoic concerns.
Chapter 6 then begins to move the book into more of a developmental focus, beginning with some reflections to help the reader explore whether leading with love is ‘really for me’? This is a comparatively short, summative chapter that restates the case for leading with love, and some of the barriers and fears that might be encountered along the path. The authors here recognize that leadership with love carries some costs and risks, and underline that it must arise from within a person. Having set out why leadership with love is needed, at this point, the reader is invited to continue reading if they wish to explore more about how to go about it. Chapters 7–10 provide many practical suggestions for developing leadership with love, based on a framework made up of three stages: Re-sourcing, channelling and embodying.
Chapter 8 covers the first stage of ‘Re-sourcing’ which is about connecting with values, beliefs and motivations. The importance of clarity of intention is made here in terms of what type of leader a person wants to be and how this can build trusting relationships with followers. Chapter 9 on the next stage of ‘Channelling’ concerns acting in alignment with intentions, which may imply some vulnerability. It provides practical tools to draw on when faced with challenging workplace situations in which we may react in ways that we did not intend. The final framework component of ‘Embodying’ is covered in chapter 10 which demonstrates the impact of actions and how leading from a place of love enables the authenticity and trust required to have possibly challenging conversations and to take the ‘right’ course of action, even in a challenging workplace systems.
Moving on from the framework, chapter 11 explores how to develop self-love as a foundation for being able to lead others with love. This chapter stimulates further self-inquiry in the reader, offering coaching insights alongside many recommendations for further reading and self-analysis. While this deviates from what might be expected from a ‘regular’ leadership text, it is instrumental to the ongoing reflective inquiry naturally inherent to individuals drawn to this way of leadership and provides the groundwork for leader self-understanding and compassion, which is said to be needed to value others. Chapter 12 provides case studies on leadership with love, which are based on real leaders but presented fictionally to protect identities. These provide further demonstrations of what it means in practice to lead with love in global organizations and is a useful way to reinforce the theories and concepts of earlier chapters through practical examples. Chapter 13 concludes the book with suggestions on how to move forward from the messages given in the book at the individual, organizational and societal levels.
In summary, this is a perspective-shifting, and perhaps even life-changing, book which can be returned to again and again on a developmental leadership journey. Readers are provided with extensive references and recommendations for further reading and reflection, both from academic and practitioner sources. Methodological detail further informs understanding of not only what has informed analysis but can inspire further research in the field and continue the journey of discovery. From an academic perspective, it can be suggested that greater comparative focus could be given to the principles of leadership with love alongside other contemporary leadership thinking. While several leadership theories are mentioned, it would be interesting to learn more about the extension of thought in applying leadership with love to traditional and contemporary leadership theory. Discussion is notably missing on leadership approaches such as servant leadership, which arguably share characteristics of the leadership with love approach, and it would be helpful to understand the writer’s rationale for which leadership theories have been included and why. For those readers who are receptive to the alignment of leadership analysis with philosophical thought and spiritual underpinning, it offers academically robust and practitioner-informed views that are rather wonderfully wrapped up in practical and deeply penetrative observations we can all draw on to navigate the demands of workplaces as leader or follower. Instinctively, the book may not immediately appeal to all and may challenge some readers since love is rather an alien concept in competitive, individualistic work environments. Perhaps these are the readers who need to read this book most of all, to bring about the paradigm shift needed to address personal and broader societal challenges of our century. Equipped with the insights, tools and techniques presented here, the leadership (and indeed follower) advice is really quite simple – ‘What would love have me do in this situation?’ (p. 24).
