Kyricos has studied love as an effective business strategy / photo: Kyricos & Associates
Over the years, I’ve taken multiple leadership assessments that have identified love as one of my core leadership traits, but I didn’t always understand its power or even feel comfortable leveraging it in professional environments.
During the pandemic, I studied the potential of love as a business strategy and was blown away by what I discovered and this gave me the courage to become a love advocate. Not only does it feel good, it’s good for business too.
Simply put, love is a good business strategy because it impacts business performance. Research has shown that high-performance companies tend to have three times the number of leaders who embody loving credentials, including proactively inspiring, or empowering others by managing to people’s strengths and modelling empathy, gratitude and respect in the workplace.
The body of research which proves the power of love is growing. Three years ago, I looked at companies such as Subaru, Southwest Airlines and Prudential Insurance, among others, to see how love – or in this case, positivity management – has helped them outperform the competition.
I also read the pioneering work of leadership experts such as Steve Farber (see below), and positivity experts such as Barbara Frederickson, each essentially naming love as a “superpower” whether from a business or science perspective. They all led me to the same belief that love should have a seat at the business table because its potential is huge if we have the courage to leverage it.
However, this is a radical concept and while business leaders may talk about love in a casual sense – such as loving the industry, their career paths or teams – most of them don’t know how to institutionalise love as a business practice.
In my opinion, there are four practical ways to begin.
Firstly, believe in the power of love and be fearless in championing its place at work and in life. If you’ve worked in the business of wellness over the last 10-20 years, you have likely spent a good deal of time attempting to make a business case for wellness, even before the data existed to prove its worth to owners, investors and consumers, because you knew in your gut that the business of wellness could impact profit and health outcomes even before the research was available. Well, the same is true for love.
Only leaders who authentically believe in the power of love should be leading it as a business practice
Secondly, adopt a positive and flexible mindset. This means shifting awareness to what’s going right, rather than wrong and managing to people’s strengths rather than their weaknesses. Start meetings, or even training sessions, by acknowledging successes rather than challenges, welcoming change rather than resisting it, publicly practicing gratitude, and above all else, establishing trust in your organisation. Without trust, it’s impossible for love to even grow, let alone produce business impact.
Thirdly, find ways to easily and objectively measure love in business. Metrics can vary from net promoter score to customer acquisition and retention, higher margins, and evangelist marketing. Find out what your employees love about their jobs. Even more courageous, ask what they don’t love in order to identify ways to turn negative emotions and experiences into positive ones.
Finally, be honest. Only leaders who authentically believe in the power of love should be leading it as a business practice. There’s nothing wrong with passing the torch to a believer so that you can follow their lead.