What Eight Languages Revealed About Love
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Working with groups is always juicy. Each has their stuff, longings and hopes, quirks and quibbles. My job is to understand who they are so I can meet them where they are…and then challenge them to discover something about Love.
But the group I worked with a couple of weeks ago brought a whole new level of complexity.
They were global partners of a non-profit organization spanning ten countries across Africa, Asia, and Central and North America.
They spoke at least eight languages and carried many cultural traditions.
They shared a common faith expressed through different religious affiliations.
Some had experienced poverty; some lived and worked in war zones.
All were committed to uplifting people and the planet.
All this gave me pause.
“What do I have to share with them?” I wondered.
Meeting beforehand with country leaders was inspiring and clarifying, revealing their strengths, challenges, and hopes.
The process reminded me: Slow down. Sense their needs. Notice. Make room.
Love and Wisdom from Source felt like the only way to wisely hold all this complexity and all that was unknown.
So I prepared and searched for Loving answers:
How do I convey dignity and deep respect?
How do I adapt creatively in the moment?
How do I soften power dynamics?
And how on earth do I design meaningful content in just 45 minutes of each 90-minute session, leaving space for translation?
I joyfully facilitated two sessions in their virtual conference.
Everyone’s a Leader: Leading with Love in Every Role
Loving Leadership: Growing Together as Compassionate Leaders from Intention to Action
As I told them, my heart was knit to theirs.
What stood out to me was this:
Some leaders and organizations do not need convincing that Love belongs at work.
For this group, Love was already at the center. They already build trust through dignity and respect. They support one another through hardship, collaborate, encourage learning, communicate openly, and celebrate.
Because that relational baseline of Love was already strong, we could focus on deeper leadership questions:
How do we handle conflict?
How do we have hard conversations with friends?
How do we address poor performance?
And through the Loving Leaders’ Framework, we also explored another challenge:
How do we operationalize love as STEWARDS of an organization?
I also saw something even more clearly:
A diverse group can understand Love more fully than a homogenous one.
Most people know Love through one primary frame: one culture, one language, and one lived experience. It’s like this bit of glass. Beautiful, yes, but partial.
But this group, because it is global and multi-cultural, has a rare opportunity to form a richer, fuller, more multifaceted understanding of Love. Like this.
This will help them to:
understand each other more deeply.
create new possibilities for impact.
build something more sustainable together.
This is special. And it is a tremendous advantage.
A wider circle of human experience does not dilute love. It stretches it and strengthens it. Makes it wiser.
The more difference we embrace, the more mature our Love can become. And wiser Love can build stronger people, stronger teams, and stronger futures.
What about you?
Who around you might understand Love differently because of their culture, history, role, generation, faith, hardship, or life experience?
What might become possible if you grew more curious about what Love looks like through their eyes?
