Leadership Horizons

Leading with Love and Joy

• Lois Burton • Episode 11

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What happens when leaders dare to bring love and joy into their professional toolkit? This thought-provoking journey explores how genuine care and purposeful enthusiasm are becoming essential elements for today's most effective leaders—not just nice-to-haves.

The traditional corporate world has long conditioned us to keep emotions separate from business decisions. Many senior leaders still view concepts like "leading with love" as too soft for the boardroom. But what if this represents a fundamental misunderstanding that's limiting organizational potential? 

Through compelling stories and practical insights, we discover how leading with love means creating psychological safety, seeing the full humanity in each team member, and genuinely caring about their growth—all while maintaining focus on results.

Meet Joanna, an executive who chose to lead with love during a difficult restructuring. Rather than maintaining professional distance when faced with resistance and even personal attacks, she doubled down on transparency, genuine care, and connection. The outcome wasn't just a smoother transition but renewed trust that continues to pay dividends. 

Similarly, when leaders reconnect with their sense of purpose and joy, it transforms their energy and ripples throughout the organization, fostering innovation and engagement even during challenging times.

Ready to integrate these approaches into your leadership? Try deep listening in your next one-on-one (aim for 80% listening, 20% speaking), create conditions where everyone can develop their strengths, celebrate progress alongside outcomes, bring your authentic self to work, and prioritize meaningful connection in our digital world. 

These practices don't replace addressing difficult issues—they provide a stronger foundation for navigating challenges effectively. When team members know you genuinely care about their success, they're more likely to receive feedback as helpful rather than threatening. The future belongs to leaders who don't choose between effectiveness and humanity but skillfully integrate both. 

What might your leadership look like if you approached it with more love and joy?

Leadership Horizons - Helping You Lead Beyond Boundaries

Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome to Leadership Horizons, the podcast where we explore leadership at its most transformative through unique perspectives. I'm your host, lois Burton, an executive coach and leadership development specialist with over 25 years of experience of working with senior leaders and executives across multiple disciplines and sectors. These diverse experiences have shaped my core belief that people can make good choices, move forward, fulfil their potential and develop into the leaders they aspire to be. And today I want to talk about something that's been missing from many leadership conversations recently the transformative power of leading with love and joy. In our rapidly changing world, leaders matter more than ever. As I often say, the way we led yesterday isn't going to lead us into tomorrow. We need new approaches, expanded horizons and, perhaps most importantly, we need to reconnect with the human elements of leadership that truly inspire and transform. Today's episode is all about why leading with love and joy isn't just a nice to have. It's becoming an essential approach for leaders who want to create resilient, innovative and thriving organisations. So let's explore what this means in practice. When I mention leading with love to executives, I often get raised eyebrows. In our corporate cultures, we've been conditioned to keep emotions separate from business decisions, despite the emphasis we have seen in recent years on emotional intelligence. Many senior people still see leading with love as too soft, too personal for the boardroom. But that's a fundamental misunderstanding of what love means in leadership. Leading with love isn't about romantic feelings or excessive niceness. It's about genuine care for the well-being and growth of those you lead. It's about creating psychological safety where people can bring their authentic selves to work. It's about creating psychological safety where people can bring their authentic selves to work. It's about seeing the full humanity and potential in each person on your team. In my thousands of hours of experience coaching leaders and teams, I've observed something remarkable Leaders who operate from a foundation of care and genuine connection consistently build stronger, more innovative and more resilient teams. Let me share a story from one of my executive clients. We'll call her joanna.

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Joanna was leading a department through a very difficult restructuring earlier this year. The conventional approach would have been to maintain professional distance, focus on outcomes and push through the difficult decisions with minimal emotional engagement. Instead, joanna chose to lead with love. She made time for one-on-one conversations with team members, acknowledging their concerns and fears. She was transparent about the challenges while expressing genuine care for each person's future. She created spaces for team members to support each other through the transition.

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Now I think some of you will be thinking yes, that is a good approach and an approach that we would normally take. I'm not quite seeing where this is truly leading with love. Where this came in was that this was not an easy process, as, despite all the processes Joanna put in place that she thought would help to demonstrate her empathy and her genuine care, she still experienced some very difficult reactions, strong resistance and even personal attacks verbal attacks I will stress, verbal attacks on online forums and in in-person forums. It would have been a natural response at that stage for her to withdraw herself and put more distance between those people who were throwing anger, fear and personal insult at her. However, even during the most difficult phase, joanna chose to stay on her path. She reached out more. She took time with the people who were demonstrating the most hostility to try and understand what was driving this. She continued to be open and transparent and worked very hard to maintain a genuine sense of care. I'll be honest, not everyone responded, but the vast majority of her staff did, and gradually, there were only a few outliers who were still resisting and their influence was steadily diminishing. Even with these people. Joanna still kept reaching out, still taking the time, still listening to them and assuring them of her support through the process.

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It is important to say that she didn't compromise on the results she needed. The restructure still went ahead and was systematically implemented. The restructure still went ahead and was systematically implemented. So what was the ultimate result? It was hard and it took time, but Joanna's approach paid off in the end. Her department managed the restructure with significantly less disruption than some of her colleagues. No-transcript.

Speaker 1:

I worked with Joanna throughout this process, and one of the things she said to me I remember vividly. She said we all still have to work together, we have to love our jobs and produce great results, and if my team feel that I've distanced myself at a time of challenge, how will they ever trust me again? I must stay with them for everyone's sake. Joanna demonstrated a tremendous level of love and care during this period and has been repaid by renewed trust and confidence from her team. She also practiced a high level of self-care and compassion, as this process inevitably took its toll on her too. This is vital, and I'm going to be diving more into that next week. So this is an example of somebody who went above and beyond that. Even when things were difficult, even when she felt under personal attack, she still stayed leading with love, and it paid off.

Speaker 1:

So now let's talk about joy. In my work with senior executives across the sectors, from healthcare to finance, from higher education to manufacturing, I find many leaders who've forgotten the joy of leading. They're so focused on metrics, deadlines and firefighting that they've lost connection with what originally inspired them to lead. They're exhausted, burnt out, and their team sense it. When leaders operate from depletion rather than joy, it creates a ripple effect throughout the organization. One of the core values I bring to my coaching is creativity, helping leaders rediscover creative approaches and the joy that comes with innovation and growth. When leaders reconnect with their own sense of purpose and joy, it transforms their energy and the energy of their teams. Consider this what would your leadership look like if you approached it with more joy? How might your team's meetings change? How might your strategic planning evolve? How might your difficult conversations transform?

Speaker 1:

Joy is another one of those words, like love, that isn't often in the corporate leadership language, and I want to stress that it doesn't mean ignoring challenges or difficult realities. It means approaching them with a spirit of possibility rather than dread. It means celebrating progress and learning, not just final outcomes. It means finding meaning in the journey, not just final outcomes. It means finding meaning in the journey, not just the destination. One CEO I worked with had become so serious and stressed that his leadership team had started to avoid him. Through our coaching, he reconnected with what had originally inspired him to lead helping others develop their talents and creating something meaningful together. As he brought that joy back into his leadership approach, his team's engagement skyrocketed and innovation followed. So how do we practically integrate love and joy into our leadership?

Speaker 1:

Let me share five approaches I've developed with my clients. Firstly, practice deep listening. Loving leadership begins with truly hearing others, not just their words, but their underlying concerns, aspirations and ideas. This is a key ingredient to a coaching approach to leadership and something I work on with many groups of leaders. In my coaching sessions, I focus on helping my coachees to go beyond surface conversations to understand what truly matters to the person in front of you. This is opposed to what's sometimes called predatory listening, where we are only listening for opportunities to make our own case and get our points across. When leaders listen deeply, team members feel valued and unexpected insights emerge. Try this in your next one-to-one Aim to listen 80% of the time and speak only 20%. Notice what changes in the quality of the conversation.

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Secondly, create conditions for growth. Love means wanting others to flourish, and growth creates joy. As a leader, ask yourself regularly am I creating conditions where everyone on my team can develop their strengths and reach their potential? This might mean offering challenging assignments, providing learning opportunities or simply giving people the autonomy to solve problems in their own way. In my work with leadership teams, I often find that when leaders shift from controlling to enabling, both, creativity and commitment increase dramatically. Third, celebrate progress and learning. Joy emerges when we recognize forward movement, even small steps. Too many organizations focus exclusively on final outcomes while ignoring the learning and growth along the way. Create regular opportunities to acknowledge progress, share learning and celebrate effort, not just results. This builds a growth mindset, it builds resilience and it creates a positive emotional climate where innovation can flourish.

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Fourth, bring your authentic self. Both love and joy require authenticity. Leaders who pretend to be perfect or who hide their genuine enthusiasm create distance. When you share appropriate vulnerability and genuine excitement, you give others permission to be real as well. In my coaching practice, I've seen remarkable transformations when leaders drop the perfect professional mask and bring more of their humanity to work, teams respond with increased trust and engagement, and this enhances the joy, the authenticity and the sense of being real. And fifthly, prioritise connection. In our digital, hybrid working world, it's easy to focus on tasks and forget the human connections that fuel both love and joy.

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Intentionally create opportunities for meaningful connection, not just social events, but genuine conversations where people can share what matters to them. One leadership team I've worked with start each meeting with a simple question what's alive for you right now? I love that you know that just instantly brings that sense of connection what's alive for you right now? This small practice could transform their dynamics by acknowledging each person's current reality before diving into business. Now you might be thinking this all sounds great, lois, but what about the hard parts of leadership? What about difficult conversations, tough decisions and accountability? This is where we need to challenge our either or thinking.

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Leading with love and joy doesn't mean avoiding difficult issues. In fact, it provides a stronger foundation for addressing challenging challenges effectively. When team members know you genuinely care about them and want them to succeed, they're more likely to receive challenging feedback as helpful rather than threatening, when you've built trust through authentic connection. Difficult conversations become opportunities for growth rather than sources of fear. I've coached many leaders through what they initially feared would be impossible conversations. By approaching these conversations with genuine care for the other person, combined with clarity about needful changes, these leaders were able to transform potential conflicts into turning points. Leading with love means caring enough to have the difficult conversation, not avoiding it. Leading with joy means finding satisfaction in growth and positive change, even when the path to get there includes challenging moments.

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Let me share something. In my decades as an executive coach, I've witnessed the cost of loveless, joyless leadership, both to organizations and to the leaders themselves. I've seen brilliant, dedicated leaders burn out because they disconnected from their humanity in service of metrics and deadlines. I've seen organizations fail to innovate because fear replaced curiosity and possibility. This is why my coaching approach emphasizes both challenge and support. My clients often tell me that I combine deep empathy with a willingness to stretch them beyond their comfort zones. That balance is essential, because growth happens at the edge of comfort, but only when we feel safe enough to take risks. The same is true for your leadership. When you combine genuine care with high expectations, when you bring joy to challenges rather than just to celebrations. You create the conditions for extraordinary performance. As I mentioned at the beginning, I specialize in developing authentic, confident leaders who can fulfill their potential, increase their resilience and influence, build extraordinary teams and create successful organizations. Leading with love and joy is fundamental to that authenticity and confidence.

Speaker 1:

Before we wrap up today's episode, I'd like to leave you with a reflection question and a small challenge. The reflection question and a small challenge. The reflection question is this where in your leadership have you separated effectiveness from humanity? Where have you created a false choice between results and relationships? And here's your challenge for the week, should you choose to accept it. Identify one meeting or interaction where you can intentionally bring more love in the form of genuine care and attention and more joy in the form of possibility and appreciation. Then notice what shifts as a result.

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Remember, the future of leadership doesn't require us to choose between being effective and being human. The most transformative leaders integrate both, creating cultures where people can bring their full talents and passion to work. As we navigate increasingly complex challenges, this integration of love and joy with clarity and purpose will become not just a nice approach but a necessary one. In next week's episode, I'll be diving into how leaders can promote resilience through kindness and compassion, and that includes kindness to themselves and prioritizing self-care. Until then, I'm Lois Burton, and this has been Leadership Horizons. Thank you for joining me as we explore how to lead beyond boundaries, because the future of leadership knows no bounds.