Not so long ago the linking of ‘love’ and ‘work’ would have
been considered flaky and soft but now books on love and work, love and leadership, and many others, are filling Amazon’s shelves and a quick check on Google this morning revealed 969 million returns for ‘love and work’. Not all of these entries would be considered strictly commercial but my point is that we are talking A LOT about love as if it is the new, new thing in business and leadership.

For many years the love and work connection was dominated by
the HR departments desire to control and deter romance and sexual behaviour at work. http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200703/love-work
Quite a useful strategy for keeping people focused, avoiding embarrassment and the whole spectrum of abuse of power that seems to be both real and perceived. But I suspect even the most stringent policy driven organisation has the odd romance and fling going on. It seems that human beings and love are inseparable.

Romance is not the only form love takes at work.  There’s much more to our work- love story. Think about your most inspiring or inspired leadership or work related experiences. Were they the result of some super sophisticated strategy, procedure or process or a gob-smacking vision that blew your socks off? I doubt it. Mine are all completely distinguishable by the difficult to define quality of LOVE.

I once worked in a team that was so highly motivated we worked for weeks at times without breaks or extra incentive. I couldn’t explain it then but looking back our boss inspired us through his absolute faith in our talents and learning ability (which was bordering on crazy at times), but like a proud parent he never doubted any of us for a second and held on to a vision for us even if we couldn’t see it for ourselves. He held our hands through challenging times, he provided support for every risk we took, he worked
restlessly to encourage and promote our personal as well as our work goals, and
he shared and celebrated our successes.

Our boss loved ‘IT’ (our business). He loved our company. He loved his team. He loved the contribution we were making to the business. And that LOVE was the fuel for our exceptional motivation and performance.

Leadership is not about models, theories and process. Leadership is not even about having the best vision, strategy, goals, people, technology or systems. If it were, Apple should never have been so outrageously successful and countless other organisations who invest millions in their technology, systems, processes and people would be much more successful than they have been.

It makes a huge difference to LOVE WHAT YOU DO. Where would Apple be if Steve Jobs didn’t LOVE sexy technology? Where would Microsoft have got to without Bill Gates’ LOVE of clever software? But that’s not the whole LOVE STORY either.

Effective leaders are able to inspire others to have the FAITH TO FOLLOW, even into the scary unknown. They also have the credibility to compel their people to dig deeply and draw on all their talents, qualities and resources to find solutions to impossible problems, to go the extra mile and find whatever it takes to achieve the goals.

Despite uncertainty about the future, true leaders create the conditions for their people to explore, experiment, test, fail, learn and succeed. They foster self belief and belief in the possible. They create a united sense of security and LOVE.

I realised long ago that when I peel away the hard nosed labels on the work I do (executive coaching, capability development, skills training, facilitating change, culture change programmes, team building, etc), what lies beneath is simply this: humans learning to love themselves, to love their work, to love their colleagues and to love the meaning they make of it all.

Powerful leadership is about having the conscious commitment to learn how to love. So, how do we love? Well that’s for another post! Take a few moments now though to look through this short self inventory survey and ponder your own LOVING capabilities at work.

Loving Capability Self Inventory:

So, are your LOVE AT WORK capabilities or LOVING LEADERSHIP
skills in need of some TLC?  Contact us to arrange a personal coaching session, an in-house talk or seminar, or to find out about our next public programme.

With love, Lorraine

We have within our grasp the ability to create a world of which we are all proud and to change the things we know to be harmful to human existence and happiness.  All we need to do is put our planet and people at the core of every decision we make and every action we take.  It takes a special type of courage for a leader or an organisation to own and face this challenge.

To create the kind of world we want to live in, and pass on to future generations, we must take responsibility for the quality of our thinking, intentions, motivations, emotions, decisions and actions. This is why conscious leadership is emerging as the most important leadership style today.

A mini self-assessment?

Where are you in your leadership approach today? Where are your organisations leaders?

Moral Integrity

Do you have moral authority? Is your integrity transparent? Do you wear your values on your t-shirt for all to know who you are and what is important to you? Do you know what factors or values influence all your decisions and actions today? Can others trust you to follow or support your direction with faith and passionate commitment? Do you inspire passionate commitment just by being clear about who you are and what you stand for?

Alert Awareness

Do you have exquisite self awareness, not just of your behavioural impact but of your deeper motivations, intentions and emotions? And do you have the choice to be free from habitual limitations and to face your absolute truth? How quickly do you pick up and make sense of changes in others or the world around you?

Resourceful Capability

How much access do you have to the most important resources of alertness, sensitivity, agility, connection, confidence, creativity, courage, decisiveness, analysis, inspiration and honesty?

Systemic Intelligence

How well honed are your systemic skills? Do you have the imagination to be able to step into the shoes of children 7 generations into the future and be proud of your decisions and actions today? Can you step into the past and fully utilise the learning from old successes and joys as well as old wounds, mistakes and disasters? Can you make decisions and take action today based on multiple perspectives, contexts and timeframes?

Creative Imagination

How well honed are your strategic skills? Do you have the creative imagination to envisage multiple futures and map out multiple routes as you evaluate best possible direction in the moment? How easily can you access your intuitive wisdom to make the best choices? How effectively do you communicate with and engage those who are key to your success?

These are just some of the emerging strengths of todays Conscious Leaders.

What next?

If you are ready to take your conscious leadership to the next level have a look at our downloadable Conscious Leadership Programme. Or contact us for executive coaching, facilitation, speaking or workshops at lorraine@futureplan.co.uk

Also if you feel you are a great example of a conscious leader or you know someone who is, then nominate at www.50Leaders.com. You will also find there many current examples of conscious leadership for inspiration.

(Thank you Al for this photo!  www.almelville.com)

My love of consultancy work is driven by my passion for meeting new people and helping them to explore their changes, growth and development. I LOVE seeing people as they truly are in all their complex and simple quests for increasing their success at work and fulfilment in life. I relish exploring the deeper structures of motivations, thinking and feeling that create the behaviours that result in the work, relationships and lives we have.

I feel deeply honoured to share the journey with so many of you who are stepping into your potential and beginning to navigate new territories and I feel humbled and inspired by the courage and faith I am entrusted to witness and the (sometimes hidden) visions that I hold in my heart, often through time.

As a consultant, facilitator, and coach I am privileged to be a change agent and despite the breadth and depth of my experience, I am just as vulnerable as anyone else to all the fears and anxieties aroused by change regardless of whether it’s initiated or imposed. And as a change agent, like many of you, I am also at risk of neglecting my own conscious transformations at times. 

Luckily my lifelong friend and co-coach Paul King is never too far away when I need some coaching or a sounding board. He has recently helped me shift some mental fog and clear the way for the next stage of my development.

My next steps are not completely clear yet but some of my emerging change is about balance and focus. I want to shift the balance of my work now to create more time for creative design and writing, and I want to focus my consultancy and coaching work on developing fresh thinking and tools for a new approach to leadership.

So I can develop both of these passions, I am transferring my consultancy and coaching practice to Future Plan Consulting where my good friends Pat and Nick Naylor have been collaborating with me for a while now. You can reach me through Future Plan at lorraine@futureplan.co.uk  if you would like to contact me regarding consulting, coaching, facilitating and training.

You will still be able to contact me at lorraine@passionatwork.co.uk for e-programmes and e-tools for leadership, team and personal development resources. You will see some changes to the web site soon.

I’d love to be in touch with you through both Passion@work and Future Plan where I will be posting about a new way of leading very soon. However if you would like to unsubscribe please just hit reply and put ‘Unsubscribe’ in the subject line – I will miss you but I understand.  If you would like to continue to receive emails from us at Future Plan and from me at Passion@work you need do nothing at all.

I am both excited and scared by these next steps of my evolution and I hope you are conscious of your own journey into the freshness of your new territory.

What are you shifting, opening, embracing, balancing or focusing on in your next development steps?

Passionately, Lorraine