Leading with Love and Laughter

Letting Go and Getting Real at Work

Zina Sutch, Patrick Malone

• Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781523093236
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Leadership
• Index: Business

Leadership has for too long been treated as a model and not as a relationship. Zina Sutch and Patrick Malone argue that successful leadership must be based on love (altruism and empathy) and laughter (positive emotions and joy). Recent bestselling books have completely altered the way we understand how humans work and play together. The Altruistic Brain and Born to Be Good show that humans are deeply wired for empathy and compassion. The Social Animal and Emotional Intelligence prove that our emotional selves help us make better decisions and motivate others. However, the tactics we use to train leaders bear little reflection of these advancements; we're still creating competent but emotionally distant leaders who “manage human assets” and lead by setting goals, deadlines, and deliverables. Zina Sutch and Patrick Malone hope to flip a light switch and illuminate, above all else, that leadership begins with heart and soul. In five succinct chapters, they show that we lead best when we tap into our genetically driven human nature to love and nurture, connect and trust. This book seeks to reintroduce the warmth of human interaction and emotion into the leadership tool kit.

PART I

LOVE

CHAPTER 1

LOVE IS THE ANSWER

Starting the first chapter in a book on leadership with the word love is risky business. Here come those mushy soft skills again! But then again, were you not interested, or at least curious, you wouldn’t be reading the book anyway, right? We love that you chose to do so. Oops, there’s that word again. Love.

The word love is used in many different contexts, and we toss the word around like a Frisbee. Most of the time, we use love in reference to personal spheres of our lives, our relationships. We build connections with one another and sometimes eventually grow to love each other. We love our partners, our families, our friends. And they love us back. It feels good. But sometimes we love things that don’t love us back. This is a more impersonal sphere of love. We love reading. We love burritos. We love burritos (no, our editor did not miss that—we love burritos a lot. It’s worth stating twice.). Sometimes we throw up our jazz hands and say, “I love it!” If we aren’t the type of person who uses jazz hands, we still feel love.

Yet, when it’s used in the context of the workplace, or more specifically the people in our workplace, we shun the notion of love. We say to ourselves, “Wait, what? I can’t just exude love to my coworkers and subordinates. I’ll look weak. It would be inappropriate. What would they think?” We may say we love our work, and that’s equally as meaningful as saying we love burritos, but let’s be honest—they are burritos after all! So, where does love fit?

Before we tackle these questions, we want to begin by simply making the case for love, because before we can permeate our leadership with love, we need to ground ourselves in an understanding of what love is. And spoiler alert—ten thousand years of philosophical exploration has us no closer to getting a handle on this. It’s familiar, maybe too much so, to the point that the word has become almost meaningless. But there are ways for us to envision love, apply it in our daily lives, and be better leaders for it. So, allow us to introduce the notion of love! We say introduce because we believe love is something that infuses our lives, yet many still take it for granted. We think we know what love means, how it makes us feel, and that there are many types of love. Let’s see what we can uncover.

The Concept of Love

An introduction to the concept of love may seem like a pointless endeavor. Is it worth the presentation of such a common notion? One we all share? If we all know what love is, why the need to introduce it? Because while love may be there in parts of our lives (see partners and burritos above), it’s missing in other parts, namely leadership. We generally find love only in places where we feel comfortable expressing it. What about the parts of our lives that we never thought needed our love? If we gain a better understanding of this tricky concept, we’ll be able to spread love in everything we do, from our homes to our workplaces.

The philosophical foundation of love is worth a quick look. The Greeks rocked the house with their depiction of seven types of love, but you may find yourself struggling with pronunciation. We certainly did. Here’s how the Greeks viewed love in today’s lingo (see table 1):

Storge. Ever try to describe the love feeling you have for your offspring, sometimes known as children, and directly applicable except during the teenage years? This would also apply to parents and to well-behaved brothers and sisters. This love is problematic to describe, but we use it often, mostly on Mother’s Day or Father’s Day. We love our family regardless of their personality or political leanings (except during the holidays when forced to sit through a dinner of turkey or ham). This is what storge (pronounced “store-jay”) describes. It is not physical or sexual, but rather family-like, or familiar. It stems from some level of dependency, especially early on (child to parent) and later on (parent to child).

Philia. Has anyone ever told you that you should date your best friend or that long-lasting relationships start with friendship? This friendship love is called philia, and it is all about affection and not romance. You don’t have to be physically or sexually attracted to feel philia. Philia, the love you have for another, is more about being able to trust the person, see the good in the person, and be able to depend on the person. So, as far as the phrase “Let’s just be friends,” well, maybe that ain’t so bad? Nah, it’s pretty bad. Sorry. The good news is that this friendship love is usually shared between equals, and at some point in this love relationship each person grows with the other because of mutual respect, admiration, and trust.

Eros. Eros is the love we most often think of when we say love. Yes, this is what we refer to when we say we are madly in love, or we fell in love, or we found the one. And no thanks to movies that often depict this love in inaccessible ways by creating scenarios that make us feel a little inadequate when searching for the love of our life! Eros is the love that describes a physical, sexual, heart-stopping love we feel for another person, and not always in a dimly lit room after many drinks. This love is described as romantic, as passionate, and sometimes as madness (which happens to be the name of our sailboat). Some attest that eros doesn’t last past the honeymoon stage, but others say it can last a lifetime. So, the next time you encounter someone for whom you feel this pull, tug, or connection and you just can’t stop thinking about them, remember it is love, eros love.

Table 1. Greek Love at a Glance

Storge	“I love ya like a sister.”
Philia	“I value our friendship so very much.”
Eros	“I can’t think of anyone but you.”
Pragma	“Yeah, we’ve been together forever. So there’s that!”
Agape	“No matter what, I’ll always love you.”
Ludus	“Wow, you’re hot!”
Philautia	“I’m okay.”

Pragma. This is a love that evolves over time, between two people who basically decided to make it work, regardless of what might be missing with respect to passion or attraction. It is often found between people who have been together for so long, they have learned how to compromise for the good of the partnership. So that silence you hear at Grandma and Grandpa’s house may simply be pragma love. It may have started with eros, but over time the mutual goals became more important than individual goals or even individual happiness. In the best of cases, it may be philia-like if the couple remain friends. However, pragma in its purest form is much more identifiable in situations where a couple stays together out of a contractual sense of obligation. Sadly, this love is more common than one might think.

Agape. Think Mother Teresa. This unconditional, all-giving love is not often experienced or seen. Few people can truly exhibit this love over a long period of time because it is the kind of love that requires a human being to give at an almost-superhuman level. Sometimes described as spiritual and otherworldly, agape is exhibited by people who would suffer in order to ensure the happiness of others. This is more than simply holding the door open for someone who needs help or dropping a few dollars in someone’s violin case, hat, or cup. It has no conditions and serves only the best interest of others. It has been described as altruism; however, altruism also comes with physiological benefits. Consider agape as a love that is felt for others, and for all others, at one’s own expense.

Did you know that capuchin monkeys and chimpanzees express love by showing that they prefer the greater-good approach and not a selfish approach? In experiments, the capuchin and the chimpanzee consistently exhibit this altruistic behavior. When given a choice between different-colored tokens, where one color rewards only the self and the other color rewards both the self and the other monkey, the capuchin and the chimpanzee both consistently choose the color that rewards both.

Ludus. Think back to the days when you and your friends would go out and hit a bar. If you still do this, we’re up for hearing the stories! You do a little people watching. And then you see it, someone scoping the scene and catching the eye of another at the far end of the room. The playful dance ensues: eye contact, sauntering, smiling from ear to ear, turning on the charm, and being coy. Both parties know that this may or may not lead to anything serious, but who knows? The folks you’re observing don’t know each other, so this can’t be eros love. Nonetheless, there is something there, a level of infatuation and discovery, and a little wooing. You are witnessing ludus love, or playful love. This could lead to more, but at that moment there are no commitments, just this desire to seduce or be seduced by this person. Ludus could potentially turn into the “friends with benefits” scenario, and we’ll leave it at that!

Philautia. Philautia is the love that matters most, the love for self. Without this love, you cannot truly love another. We are not talking about narcissism or self-centeredness or even self-confidence. Philautia is about being able to love yourself enough to forgive yourself, nurture yourself, be kind to yourself, and take care of yourself. This includes self-esteem and a sense of self-worth. We have all heard the saying “You can’t take care of someone you love if you don’t take care of yourself.” Even the airlines ask you to put on your own oxygen mask before attending to your child. Being able to recognize your worth and value, respecting yourself, and exhibiting self-compassion are paramount to being able to lead and love those you lead. This kind of love alleviates the need to be recognized by others, or lauded by your own leadership, or being the star of the show. When you feel this kind of love, you are not seeking validation or recognition externally because you already know and love yourself with all of your gifts, flaws, strengths, and weaknesses. You recognize, accept, and love the real you.

Importantly, and above all of the other types of love mentioned previously, philautia is crucial for one’s ability to lead others. When you possess this authentic, humble self-love, you are able to open yourself up to growth and development. You love yourself. You accept who you are. You are not afraid of failure and are open to taking risks. This includes both personal or professional relationships. Philautia opens up the possibility of growing, stretching, and learning about yourself and those around you. A setback does not destroy someone strong in philautia. Failure doesn’t lessen their self-value or give way to blame and ridicule. Letdowns result in forgiving of self and others.

Since the Greeks created their conceptions of love, the world saw love manifest itself in numerous ways over time. Love was the focus of many musicals and plays through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and into the modern age. Movies, television shows, and novels commonly tell the story of love. And as stories were told, images of love emerged.

He whom love touches not walks in darkness. —Plato

Symbols of love abound. One might ask, why is this important? They are there for a reason—to remind us of love. These symbols remind us that love exists, that we need love in our lives, and that we feel love. And for the record, this is not lost on people in the workplace. Think about it—do we ignore and not even think about love while at work? We’ll get to that.

Figure 1. Symbols of love

So what about these symbols, and where are they? Figure 1 provides a quick glance at what many of these may look like. No one could stroll through the Greek conceptions of love without mentioning Cupid—a messy amalgamation of Greek and Roman mythology. He was known to the Greeks as Eros and to the Romans as Cupid, an infant child (with muscles?) wielding a bow and a quiver laden with golden arrows and targeting unsuspecting souls with affection, love, and attraction. Why a baby was ever allowed to play with a bow and arrows is beyond our comprehension, but this did predate child labor laws and modern social services organizations.

But let’s give Cupid a break. The dude was an early symbol of love among the masses and continues to dominate the “Oh, that reminds me of love” landscape. So, he has that going for him. And symbols matter. They allow free association, often immediate, with emotions and feelings. Their importance can’t be denied. The “right” logo on a handbag, a polo shirt, or the hood of a car sends an instant message to the recipient. No extraneous talk necessary!

Many symbols have competed for top billing with Cupid. First on the list is the heart, the origin of which is not, despite how much we’d like it to be, from the box of sweetheart candies originally produced by Necco. These Valentine’s Day faves had subtle messages imprinted on the candy and probably contributed more to the spread of the common cold than sneezing in a subway or sharing a tissue with a stranger.

Nope. The origin of the heart is far more muddled, everything from a cooking herb to a part of the human anatomy. The herb argument stems from a large species of fennel called silphium found on the North African coastline, shaped much like a heart. It served the Greeks and Romans in a range of ways, including as birth control, a cooking herb, and medicine. It must have worked because it was extinct by the first century AD. Other than the fennel theory, the heart-shaped symbol, depending on whom you talk to, may have originated from European playing cards, an ivy leaf, religion, or a water lily. Artists in the Middle Ages are sometimes given credit for the heart, as they produced anatomical drawings as part of the study of medicine. Other symbols of love exist as well, and the variety may astound you.

Apples—yes, the ones you probably picked up at the grocery store a few days ago—are associated with love. So is the apple blossom as a sign of ecstasy, abundance, fertility, adoration, or union. This reference is seen in China, where the blossom is linked to adulation, and appears a great deal in Greek mythology, where apples were presented as gifts at weddings or for the sole purpose of courting a goddess.

Another symbol of love, and often used for wooing, is roses. Ah, yes, the dozen red for Valentine’s Day or to say “I’m sorry.” Usually it works, and maybe that is because the rose still symbolizes not only love but devotion, honor, beauty, wisdom, and the idea of forever. In Greek mythology, Aphrodite, the goddess of love, is seen wearing roses, sometimes from head to toe, probably because it was from her lover Adonis’s blood that the rose first emerged, symbolizing his eternal love for her. Speaking of blood, the red tulip symbolizes what some call perfect love. The short bummer story is that a prince fell in love, and when his lover was killed, he committed suicide. From every spot where his blood droplets touched, a red tulip bloomed.

Jewelry plays a role in the symbolic representation of love as well, sort of. The Celtic love knot is found in various designs that are often used in rings and necklaces. With no beginning or end, representing eternity, this design signifies never-ending love. The Claddagh ring symbolizes a legend about a fisherman who was separated from his love and was forced to work as a slave in Africa. This story inspired the creation of the Claddagh ring, depicting a heart with a crown being held up by two hands. We see these symbols in necklaces too, such as the menat symbol, from ancient Egypt. It was fashioned as a necklace made of many beads in a crescent shape in front with a counterweight at the back. This necklace was believed to bring about potency, fertility, joy, and good luck.

Let’s not forgot our flying friends like the ladybug, who may or may not be a lady. The ladybug is purported to be an indication of good luck, and in the Asian culture it also represents love. The story is that if you capture a ladybug and release it, it will find your true love and drop a hint by saying your name, and your newly found love will somehow search you out on the internet (this is true, except for the internet part). The best part is that you can pretty much guess when you should be all dressed up and waiting because the number of spots on the ladybug’s back will tell you how many months it will take for that love to find you. Maybe this was the precursor to today’s dating websites?

Other symbols that fly are evident in some of our more common birds. A careful observation of two swans facing each other reveals the obvious heart shape formed by their necks and heads. And who hasn’t been to a wedding where a basket of doves are released, hopefully without incident? Doves are liberated at weddings because it is believed that doves will seek out and find their soulmates on Valentine’s Day, the national day of love. Lovebirds are also a symbol of love because of their affectionate personalities; they will sit side by side, cozying up and cooing with their partner for hours, rarely being apart. Som...