Love makes a leader a leader. ~ Lucira Jane Nebelung

If you are discouraged by all the discord you see in the world, I would like to share the one change that changes everything: changing how we lead. We hold the key to move beyond hope and through transformational change by looking at life differently and making different choices.

We frequently use the terms leadership and management interchangeably as if they mean the same thing. They don’t. We lead people and manage things, such as work and the everyday tasks of our lives.

Leading is about our humanness, our relationships and our interactions with each other. Leaders are those who choose to make the shift from success – acquiring and accumulating material things – to significance – making a positive difference in everyone’s life.

Leading is about possibility and potential. It is about creativity and innovation. It is about our well-being and fulfillment and generating common good. It focuses on our purpose and meaning, our connection and contribution, and our growth and mastery. It is about collaboration and cooperation to solve our common problems. Leading is about diminishing our three universal fears of not having support, not being in control and not feeling adequate, so that everyone thrives and realizes their potential.

And what diminishes these fears? How do we ensure that everyone thrives? By leading as love. Leading as love means that we respond with care, understanding and respect. It is living the belief that love makes a leader a leader.

Leading as love is who we are. Leading as love is a state of being, a philosophy, an approach to life that permeates all that we do. Leading as love is an art that we are always practicing and evolving and mastering.

So, if you are in a leadership role, I ask you to consider what I am saying in what you stand for and how you show up. If you are a “follower”, I ask you to consider if the leaders you follow are there to support the common good and help each and every one of us to be the best we can be and have the life we want. In this way, if you make this choice, you lead as love and so you are also a leader.

We can change the world by changing our personal beliefs about this one thing: What makes a leader a leader? When we change our beliefs our actions will be different through our choices for who we are as leaders and who we follow or support. Every choice – who you work with, how you vote, what you buy – makes a difference.

Remember this criterion: Love makes a leader a leader. Care, understanding and respect for everyone and everything in life. We all deserve nothing less.