When Love Seems Too Soft—or Too Hard

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When first encountering Love as the core guiding principle of leadership, you might remember thinking, “Love? That’s ridiculous. Love is too soft.”

It’s understandable to react this way, given how Love is socialized and trivialized.

But by taking a beat to consider Love, its fullness becomes clear. And in that fullness is its usefulness. 

Here’s what I mean:

Love is both fierce and gentle. It holds both “Yes of course!” and “Hell no!” Love allows just as it also denies. It is compassion and challenge. It is grace and justice. Love gives a second chance and says, “No more.”

Love coaches and provides resources for development into a role. And, Love also communicates if standards aren’t met and the role isn’t going to work out for the individual.

Love offers clarity about a change and support for the human experience of transition. And, Love also requires the adoption of new methods and tools for the good of the team and service to the customer.

Love invites input into decisions. And, Love also owns responsibility for the final decision.

Love accommodates, collaborates, and sometimes compromises to solve conflict. And, Love may also advocate hard for a position.

All these dualities of love may feel like they need to be in some dynamic balance. And perhaps, at first, this is how we hold them. But such tension is precarious.

When we try to stay in balance, at any moment, we can careen off one cliff or the other. We might fall into the deep valley of justice without any parachute of compassion. Or we might settle down in a field of tenderness unable to hike the path of the hard decision.

I have to confess. I fell into this trap this week. 

In a tense situation, my sense of justice and protection was activated, overriding my care and thoughtfulness. I began to express my opinions and concerns with that fierce energy without any compassion. I was headed off the cliff!

Thankfully, the Universe was looking out for me and the phone went dead! The conversation ended before I could do damage. This gave me the chance to reflect and come back later with a different approach.

But I didn’t return trying to balance on that tightrope.

Instead, I came back to the situation with a more integrated Love. Fierceness WITH compassion embedded in it.

Protection WITH understanding.

Force WITH kindness.

I’ll admit that the language of balance was so much a part of my speech and my go-to metaphors that it impacted my thinking about what’s possible. I’ve had to work to talk about Love differently to see and experience it differently.

Rather than balancing THIS AND THAT at the same time, I’m integrating THIS WITH THAT. In this, I’m learning to be more whole, whole as a person, and whole in my Loving Leadership.

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PS -  Would being in a community to learn how to find the Loving answers to your toughest leadership challenges be helpful for you?

If so, check out my Lead with Love Foundation Series.

In this 12-week series, you'll dig into your most pressing questions each week in the Loving Leaders Circle AND you engage in step-by-step email-based learning to create a foundation for clarity and confidence in your Loving Leadership practice.