The Unglamorous Part About Loving Leadership

We grow dahlias inspired by our neighbor's beautiful garden. They burst with shades of red, pink, and yellow blooming all summer and late into the fall. It's a delight to enjoy them sitting in the garden, to cut them to share bouquets with friends and to gently tend them so they continue to bloom. 

And then the weather changes, the cold comes and they die back and the tubers below the ground need to be lifted out and stored in a cool dry place for the winter along with preparing the ground for next season. Or they need to be covered well and protected against winter's freezing temperatures. 

This unglamorous work is not showy or particularly gratifying in the moment. But it is necessary if we want to have bursting, healthy blooms next season. And of course, there is a different kind of joy in digging in the dirt, planning, sustaining, enhancing the environment, and imagining the beauty that will be. 

The same is true for us as Loving Leaders. We enjoy the engaging, meaningful, and sometimes challenging work of caring for people in moments that matter. We pay attention, care for, challenge, and support people as they start, learn, make mistakes, face change, succeed, and perhaps move on. We seek to imbue love in these experiences so that they are uplifted and connected, able to do their best work on a trusting team. Loving Leaders may thrive on this direct engagement with people as they "bloom."

But there is another aspect of Loving Leadership that is equivalent to our unglamorous though still gratifying winter dahlia garden tasks. Loving Leaders tend to the environment and context in which our team members work.

It is our responsibility to ensure that love is embedded in the systems and structures of our team and organization. This means ensuring that our purpose, processes, policies, communication, planning, budgeting, management systems, and cultural practices are loving. This ongoing and never-complete work of leadership ensures that your loving commitments are upheld by your organizational practices so that the experiences of team members are truly loving. 

Remember that loving your team members in moments that matter is incomplete without creating a loving context for their work in the operating systems and structures of your organization