Love is God

"The entire universe is made up of a stuff called Love, and that is what God is! " ~ Sri Sri RaviShankar

7 Primary Responsibilities of Leaders

Via Greg Baer's Real Love in Workplace

Remember that as leaders we have seven primary responsibilities:

1. To love people—fellow employees, direct reports, fellow managers, vendors, and customers - unconditionally.
2. To give people the information, training, materials, manpower, and other resources that will enable them to complete their assignments.
3. To teach people how to unconditionally love those around them.
4. To encourage people to find an innate sense of meaning in their jobs, especially as they experiment with creativity and innovation. Th is naturally includes supporting people as they make the inevitable mistakes that accompany experimentation.
5. To give people a sense that they own their jobs and are responsible for them.
6. To put people in the jobs best suited for their talents and desires.
7. To hold people accountable—in a loving not controlling way—for their responsibilities.

This is a to-read book in my list.

Cultivating Love at Work

"The joy, pleasure, and fulfillment that come from doing work we love fuels extraordinary performances and brilliant, satisfying results. While autocracies lull employees into apathy and hypnotize them into subservience, democracies demand their personal ad collaborative participation, responsibility, and leadership. Joy and pleasure are encouraged by participating in the leadership of democratic organizations and harnessing the power of collective creativity and commitment. In democratic organizations where everyone is a leader and decisions are made by consensus, it is easier to be oneself and therefore to love. Our love of work, when voluntarily given is the greatest motivator of all.

- Kenneth Cloke and Joan Goldsmith in The Art of Waking People Up.

The missing ingredient in Leadership – Love

Cross posted from my other blog [http://niranjani.wordpress.com/2011/09/19/the-missing-ingredient-in-leadership-love/]

I waited for almost a year since I first stumbled upon Love Leadership to get my hands on it. I finally ordered it online and it arrived a few weeks back and I devoured this slim 190 pages book in two sittings. On hindsight, I should have ordered this much earlier.

This autobiographical book of John Hope Bryant is a sublime account of his journey through the ups and down of his life – being born into a reasonably well off family to experiencing loss and poverty in his childhood to becoming a street smart enterprenuer and finally being the founder, CEO and Chairman ofOperation HOPE. Love Leadership makes for a fascinating reading. Interspersed with anecdotes, real life stories and quotes, this book points to a fundamental truth that my Spiritual master has been speaking for years now that Love indeed moves the world.

Just today morning I was reading an interview in the newspaper where the interviewer says that corporate culture in India has undergone a sea change in the past few years and not necessarily for the better…expectation of organizations are becoming unrealistically high, which in turn forces people to become aggressive and use inappropriate means to succeed…what has changed fundamentally in our system is that the end is becoming far more important than the means.

John pin points this to where it all starts from from – Leadership. Leadership qualities that are FEAR based have characterisitics such as Coercion, Repression, Exclusion, Anger, Entitlement, Cynicism, Expediency etc. in contrast to LOVE driven leadership that includes Inspiration, Empowerment, Inclusion, Forgiveness, Opportunity, Idealism, Compassion, Spirituality etc.

It delights me no end to read about Spirituality and Love mentioned in the context of corporate world? Oh and that too from the Mecca of Capitalism? Awesome!!

I have been searching for examples of business and books written by people who have been in the shoes of CXO’s and have faced the day to day challenges of running and growing a business based on true spiritual principles. With my limited knowledge and exposure to books in this category, very few come to my mind – Ken Melrose writes about his experiences as CEO of Toro’s in his bookMaking the Grass Greener, James Autry draws about his experiences as president of Meredith Corporation in The Servant Leader and Thitch Haht Nahn’s book, The Art of Power, carries an article written by the CEO of Patagonia. Not to mention other outstanding books such as Conscious Business by Fred Koffman and One by Lance Secretan. Where John’s book stands apart is that he intersperses real life stories, interviews, quotes and incidents to bring to life what could have a very sermonizing and preachy subject.

I had already written about the Five Fundamental laws of leadership on which this book is based in my previous post, In this post, I will share a few quotes that resonated with me.

As someone who is deeply passionate about spirituality and its implementation in day to day life, this book by John makes a delightful read of how to build teams and organizations based on true north principles.

You rock, John!!

• Loss really does create leaders. It puts you on the path towards love leadership – leadership based on the strength born of struggle.

• I would learn to talk without being offensive, to listen without being defensive, and to leave my adversaries with their dignity. I would learn to love those I did not like. I would love those who did not deserve love in return.

• It takes the power of love to banish fear.

• If you lead with love for the long term, people will follow you forever, wherever – for their own good as well as yours – and you will be remembered as a person of greatness.

• Networking is a one-way relationship, building relationships is two-way.

• I don’t believe that you can love unless you do the hard work of circulating that love. Love follows one of the primary laws of money: currency without circulation has no value. Likewise, love without circulation has no value. Love is an action. Love is doing. The action necessary is doing good.

• If you can put love into circulation, you can achieve not just the accummulation of money but also true wealth, which I define as spiritual wealth, intellectual wealth and emotional wealth – plus some money, which tends to naturally follow the other qualities of true wealth.

• Admitting weaknesses and owning upto mistakes have counterintuitive benefits. When you are honest, people are more likely to forgive you any weaknesses and mistakes. You are also able to make stronger connection with others That ultimately gives you an ability to persuade and influence people, which in turn strengthens your ability to lead.

• Vulnerability shows that you are human, and it makes you loved – and all great leaders are, at their core, deeply human and much loved. That’s why people follow them.

• Coercion gains you only compliance, but influence is about gaining real, sustainable power in the world and above-the-line performance from people

• True leaders are ladder builders, not ladder climbers. [Art of Living teachers, do you recall the 2009 TRM??]

• The path to love leadership is not through a closed fist of battle, It;s through an open hand of giving.

• Love leadership of your people begins with love leadership inside of you.

• If you want to have a prosperous, sustainable life, you will find it cheaper, smarter and easier to do the work of love leadership.

• Life is made up of little moments that most of us never notice or acknowledge.

• A saint is a sinner who got up.

• We don’t love because of, we love in spite of.

• We shouldn’t leave saving the world to saints, and we shouldn’t leave capitalism to sinners.

You can follow John on Twitter at @JohnHopeBryant.

Twelve reasons we need love at work

Via Love At Work

Twelve reasons we need love at work:

Because....

• Otherwise narcissism, control, domination, unhealthy competition, selfishness, isolation, suspicion, and mistrust will dominate our work-life experience.

• Leadership without love dehumanizes and trivializes people.

• Justice is possible in the workplace only through love.

• Love releases energy, and employees deserve to have energy left over at the end of the day for their partners, their kids and their communities.

• Love is the only antidote to our individualism, consumerism and narcissism.

• As substantive research shows, loving relationships are one of the vital cures to our current epidemics of mental illness, heart disears and cancer.

• Love unlocks emotional engagement, the source of discretionary effort that produces spectacular results.

• Love grows us into mature human beings able to create a better world.

• Love scratches our itch to make a difference through our work.

• Love achieves mastery, since you cannot master anything without passion.

• Love enables us to understand each other.

• Love can create a sustainable planet.

Love at Work

Whenever you find a culture

where results are humming, 

values are working, 

and people are energized,

you will find 

Love At Work 

~ Brady G Wilson

Encouraging a new vocabulary at work

"The inherent language of the corporate workplace is far too small for us now. It has too little poetry, too little humanity, and too little good business sense for the world that lies before us. We only have to look at the most important word in the lexicon of the present workplace - manager - to understand its inherent weakness. Manager is derived from the old italian and French words mannegio and manege, meaning the training, handling and riding of a horse....images of domination... and the taming of potentially wild energy. It also implies a basic unwillingness on the part of the people to be managed, a force to be collared and reined in.....most people don't respond very passionately or creatively to being ridden... Sometimes over the next fifty years or so, the word manager will disappear from understanding of leadership... It is the artist in each of us we must now encourage into the world, whether we have worked for Getty Foundation or for Getty Oil" - 
- David Whyte

Leading an Awesome life

Via Neil Pasricha's talk at TED on The  3 A's of Awesomeness

.............there are so many things to be happy about. We are the only species on the only life-giving rock in the entire universe, that we've ever seen, capable of experiencing so many of these things. I mean, we're the only ones with architecture and agriculture. We're the only ones with jewelry and democracy. We've got airplanes, highway lanes,interior design and horoscope signs. We've got fashion magazines, house party scenes. You can watch a horror movie with monsters. You can go to a concert and hear guitars jamming. We've got books, buffets and radio waves, wedding brides and rollercoaster rides. You can sleep in clean sheets. You can go to the movies and get good seats. You can smell bakery air, walk around with rain hair, pop bubble wrap or take an illegal nap.

We got all that, but we only got 100 years to enjoy it. And that's the sad part. The cashiers at your grocery store, the foreman at your plant, the guy tailgating you home on the highway, the telemarketer calling you during dinner, every teacher you've ever had, everyone that's ever woken up beside you, every politician in every country,every actor in every movie, every single person in your family, everyone you love, everyone in this room and you will be dead in a hundred years. Life is so great that we only get such a short time to experience and enjoy all those tiny little moments that make it so sweet. And that moment is right now, and those moments are counting down, and those moments are always, always, always fleeting.

You will never be as young as you are right now.And that's why I believe that if you live your life with a great attitude, choosing to move forward and move on whenever life deals you a blow, living with a sense of awareness of the world around you,embracing your inner three year-old and seeing the tiny joys that make life so sweet and being authentic to yourself, being you and being cool with that, letting your heart lead you and putting yourself in experiences that satisfy you, then I think you'll live a life that is rich and is satisfying, and I think you live a life that is truly awesome.

Five Fundamental Laws of Leadership

[Via John Hope Bryant's book - Love Leadership]

Love Leadership distills what I have learnt about leading, particularly in these turbulent times, into five fundamental laws.

1. Loss Creates Leaders: There can be no rainbow without a storm. That is, there can be no strength or inner growth without the pain of legitimate suffering. Most great leaders came to the wisdom to lead through the endurance of life's trials.

2. Fear Fails. Fear based leadership rules today's business landscape. But leading through fear is increasingly antiquated and self-defeating. It's a crippling indulgence that we can no longer afford.

3. Love Makes Money. Love is central to success in business. In fact, the expression of love in business - that is creating long term relationships with your customers, employees, and community based on caring for others and doing good - makes you wealthy.

4. Vulnerability Is Power. When you open up, people open up to you. Vulnerability is the door to your heart. It grants great power to those who are strong enough to leave that door open. Real leaders understand that vulnerability is not a weakness; in fact, it can be your greatest strength.

5. Giving Is Getting. Leaders give - followers take, The more you offer to others, the more they will want to stay with you, share with you, protect you, and support you. Giving inspires loyalty, attracts good people, confers peace of mind, and lies at the core of true wealth.

This is a book I am waiting to read. Wonder when and if they would publish it in India.

One Part Humility and One Part Ambition

[Via Leader to Leader Journal, "Are you Humbitios enough to lead? ]

“Humbition is one part humility and one part ambition,” they wrote. “We notice that by far the lion’s share of world-changing luminaries are humble people. They focus on the work, not themselves. They seek success—they are ambitious—but they are humbled when it arrives. They know that much of that success was luck, timing, and a thousand factors out of their personal control. They feel lucky, not all-powerful. Oddly, the ones operating under a delusion that they are all-powerful are the ones who have yet to reach their potential. . . . [So] be ambitious. Be a leader. But do not belittle others in your pursuit of your ambitions. Raise them up instead. The biggest leader is the one washing the feet of the others.”