Leadership and Love: Two Sides of the Same Coin

 “Freedom and love go together. Love is not a reaction. If I love you because you love me, that is mere trade, a thing to be bought in the market; it is not love. To love is not to ask anything in return, not even to feel that you are giving something - and it is only such love that can know freedom.” 

- Jiddu Krishnamurti, Indian theosophist 1895-1986

I don’t believe it’s possible to be a leader without love, at least not a good one. In fact, I would argue that leadership and love are two sides of the same coin and give leaders the ability to be human in their actions. 

In my past I’ve had a number of really terrible managers who would never qualify as leaders in my book because they couldn’t understand how to love their people. Over the next few days I’m going to share my personal experiences with these managers. Here’s the first:

I was 19 going on 20 and my first real white-collar manager was named Paul. He had been in the industry for several years with a typical backstory: Paul worked his way up through the ranks and eventually made it to Regional Manager. He was stationed out of the regional head office and would travel to our branch for a week at a time on a regular occasion as part of his duties. 

During one particular week he was there, he noticed an outstanding quote sitting on my desk that hadn’t been priced and sent back to the customer. Now, truth be told, I was waiting on pricing and spec options to come back from our supplier but this quote was for a major customer and should have been higher on my priority list to deal with. 

Moments after Paul had noticed this mistake, he asked me to join him in one of the empty offices we had at the branch - never a good sign. I expected a lecture, and prepared myself for a lesson on prioritization of tasks and customer service. What I wasn’t prepared for was what he did next. 

Once the door closed to the office he tore into me. I mean this was the whole meal deal - yelling, screaming, swearing, hand gestures, little bits of spittle flying out of his mouth, bulging eyeballs, and we can’t forget the threats of being fired. It was a full-on tirade and I had the unfortunate front-row seat. 

After about 3 minutes of yelling and screaming (which felt significantly longer to me), he opened the door of the office and ushered me out. Worst of all, my team lead was within earshot of the office we were in and heard the whole thing. Hard to walk back to one’s desk and continue one’s day after such an experience. 

Sadly, as I worked with him more over the next few years I found out that this was his modus operandi and he treated other employees in the organization in a similar fashion. Always being overly forceful and dictating the rules of the kingdom without ever reciprocating a shred of respect. 

For all the training and experience he had as a manager, Paul never learned how to lead with love. He cared little for the people who worked for him and because of it, was constantly ridiculed in his absence. Personal lives were irrelevant in his eyes, and he never bothered to take a genuine interest in anything his people did outside of the office. He rarely asked how you were doing and if he did, he didn’t give a shit what the answer was. 

Whether a sad coincidence or the culmination of a stressful life, eventually it caught up with him. About 3 years later he suffered a massive heart attack and ended up in surgery. He survived, but eventually left the company for another opportunity. You could tell post heart-attack that he had changed. His personality and demeanor had softened considerably and he was generally more approachable. I suppose a life-threatening situation forces one to gain perspective. Too bad he didn’t choose to do it sooner.