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If you are discouraged by all the discord you see in the world, I would like to share the one change that changes everything: changing how we lead. We hold the key to move beyond hope and through transformational change by looking at life differently and making different choices.

We frequently use the terms leadership and management interchangeably as if they mean the same thing. They don’t. We lead people and manage things, such as work and the everyday tasks of our lives.

Leading is about our humanness, our relationships and our interactions with each other. Leaders are those who choose to make the shift from success – acquiring and accumulating material things – to significance – making a positive difference in everyone’s life.

Leading is about possibility and potential. It is about creativity and innovation. It is about our well-being and fulfillment and generating common good. It focuses on our purpose and meaning, our connection and contribution, and our growth and mastery. It is about collaboration and cooperation to solve our common problems. Leading is about diminishing our three universal fears of not having support, not being in control and not feeling adequate, so that everyone thrives and realizes their potential.

And what diminishes these fears? How do we ensure that everyone thrives? By leading as love. Leading as love means that we respond with care, understanding and respect. It is living the belief that love makes a leader a leader.

Leading as love is who we are. Leading as love is a state of being, a philosophy, an approach to life that permeates all that we do. Leading as love is an art that we are always practicing and evolving and mastering.

So, if you are in a leadership role, I ask you to consider what I am saying in what you stand for and how you show up. If you are a “follower”, I ask you to consider if the leaders you follow are there to support the common good and help each and every one of us to be the best we can be and have the life we want. In this way, if you make this choice, you lead as love and so you are also a leader.

We can change the world by changing our personal beliefs about this one thing: What makes a leader a leader? When we change our beliefs our actions will be different through our choices for who we are as leaders and who we follow or support. Every choice – who you work with, how you vote, what you buy – makes a difference.

Remember this criterion: Love makes a leader a leader. Care, understanding and respect for everyone and everything in life. We all deserve nothing less.

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Lucira Jane Nebelung is the founding principal of Leading as Love. She has over 30 years of experience as a leader, consultant and coach in a wide variety of organizations. She brings a valuable blend of both strategic wisdom and tactical experience in the fields of leadership development, organization effectiveness and development, and change leadership and implementation. She works with executives to align organizational actions with leader intentions and to build individual and organizational mastery of Leading as Love: Care, Understanding, Respect and Responsibility for our universal dignity, well-being and fulfillment.

Lucira Jane is a radical visionary with expertise for achieving the purpose, potential and transformation of many forms of organization: business, government, education and religion. She provides inspiration and practical know-how for both leaders and individuals to become catalysts for transformational change. Her writings, presentations, workshops, consulting and coaching challenge the way we think about the meaning and root causes of success and our responsibilities for creating the world we live in.

Lucira Jane has both a B.S. and an M.A. in Psychology and is certified in Executive Coaching. She is currently writing her second book, The Heart of the Matter: Leading as Love. In this book she shows that the foundation for effective leadership and management is love. Lucira has authored more than 50 business and professional articles and presentations. She is a frequently invited guest instructor in executive graduate programs and is a faculty member of the Graduate Institute's, Master of Arts in Organizational Leadership (MAOL).

For more information, please visit leadingaslove.com

This Post Has 6 Comments

  1. Very well stated Lucira. I totally agree. A shame more leaders aren’t in this category of connection, respect, and caring.
    In essence, each of us is a leader in some way to others. As we practice these ways of living, our good example will ideally have a ripple effect.

    1. Virginia, thank you.

      Yes, this is exactly the point: We all lead by leading our own lives with personal and social conscience and consciousness.

      We also contribute by not calling others with positional authority who hold us back as human beings, “leaders.” They are not. Thank you for your comment.

    1. Muhammad, yes it is “simple” but not necessarily “easy” to enact in practice. Leader prioritize the truth that we are in this life to thrive together.

  2. I completely agree, Lucira. Thanks for this inspiration. I’m also committed to embodying the change I want to see in the world. My personal experience has helped me step up as a leader in the area of mindfulness, personal leadership and creative potential. Everybody has the potential become a leader and to lead the life they dream of, but so many people are held back by limiting beliefs, unaware of the potential of their own mind. I’ll be sure to check out this website often! https://www.facebook.com/rachelyoudscms/

    1. Rachel, thank you. Yes, you are right about embodying who we are as human beings: Care, understanding, respect, and responsibility for and accountability to one another. This is the public face of love.

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