Lead with Love

Lead with LOVE!

Since the dawn of man we’ve tried to define this most wonderful feeling.
Here’s positive emotion specialist Barbara Fredrickson Ph.D.’s take:

“A micro-moment of love, like other positive emotions, literally changes your mind. It expands your awareness of your surroundings, even your sense of self. The boundaries between you and not-you — what lies beyond your skin — relax and become more permeable. While infused with love you see fewer distinctions between you and others. Indeed, your ability to see others — really see them, wholeheartedly — springs open. Love can even give you a palpable sense of oneness and connection, a transcendence that makes you feel part of something far larger than yourself.

Perhaps counterintuitively, love is far more ubiquitous than you ever thought possible for the simple fact that love is connection. It’s that poignant stretching of your heart that you feel when you gaze into a newborn’s eyes for the first time or share a farewell hug with a dear friend. It’s even the fondness and sense of shared purpose you might unexpectedly feel with a group of strangers who’ve come together to marvel at a hatching of sea turtles or cheer at a football game. The new take on love that I want to share with you is this: Love blossoms virtually anytime two or more people 

— even strangers — connect over a shared positive emotion, be it mild or strong.
-Barbara Fredrickson Ph.D., Love 2.0: How Our Supreme Emotion Affects Everything We Feel, Think, Do, and Become

Imagine leading with the kind of love Barbara describes. How would your work improve? How would you feel? List three actions you can create positive connections today. Then share here on the comments- how is leading with love  is working for you?

Let’s keep the conversation going…