Awakenings with David Cunningham
Awakenings is a podcast with David Cunningham exploring consciousness, awareness, love, and the deeper questions that shape how we experience life. Through thoughtful conversations and reflections, the show invites listeners to see themselves, their relationships, and the world with greater clarity and presence.
Awakenings with David Cunningham
Why People Stop Listening to Leaders
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If you’re ready to move beyond understanding this intellectually and actually live it, the Awakening Weekends are where that happens. It’s a space to experience what it means to show up differently and leave a completely different impact on the people around you.
👉 Watch David’s free video on ending self-criticism:
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If this message resonates, this is the best place to go deeper. It will shift how you relate to yourself and everything else builds from there.
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Most people try to lead with being right.
They lead with logic, persuasion, force, dominance, and intelligence.
And then they wonder why nobody is truly listening.
In this video, I talk about what leadership actually requires. Not moralistically. Not sentimentally. But practically. If people do not listen to you, you have no power as a leader no matter how brilliant, persuasive, or “right” you may be.
WHAT YOU’LL LEARN:
◻️ Why being “right” does not make you an effective leader
◻️ The real reason people stop listening to each other
◻️ Why leadership depends on people experiencing your love and respect
◻️ The difference between love as a feeling and love as a way of being
◻️ How to remain loving even during conflict or difficult conversations
◻️ Why love increases both your effectiveness and your joy in living
Leadership is not about controlling people.
It’s about who people experience you being when they are with you.
👉 Join the Awakening Weekends:
https://theawakeningweekend.com
If you’re ready to move beyond understanding this intellectually and actually live it, the Awakening Weekends are where that happens. It’s a space to experience what it means to show up differently and leave a completely different impact on the people around you.
👉 Watch David’s free video on ending self-criticism:
https://endingselfcriticism.com
If this message resonates, this is the best place to go deeper. It will shift how you relate to yourself and everything else builds from there.
Hello, everyone. It's David Cunningham. I'd like to talk about leading with love. This is a conversation for parents, for managers, for committee chairpersons, team leaders, leading with love. And in fact, all of us can lead, even if we don't have a position of leadership like a parent, a committee chairperson. No matter what activity we're engaged in with other people, we can lead. Leading with love, what's that mean? Again, this is not a Pollyanish conversation, like, oh, wouldn't it be nice if we all loved each other? It's not a moralistic conversation, like, oh, we should love each other. This is a conversation about two things. Your joy in life and your effectiveness. To be highly effective and love the living of your life requires leading with love. So what am I referring to? Well, first it's important to notice what you usually lead with. Most people usually lead with their logic. When they talk to people, they try to be logical and use their wisdom to lead others. People try to lead by being right. They use their righteousness. Hey, I'm right. So we should do it this way. People try to lead by being persuasive. People try to lead sometimes by being attractive. People try to lead by being entertaining. People try to lead by being forceful, sometimes dominating. All of those lack power. And they also don't bring you the joy. The joy of being you, the joy of living. Just notice, you're joyous when you are loving. That's when you love being you is when you're being loving. Leading with love, why is that so critical? Because any leader is only effective to the degree to which they're listened to. I don't care how brilliant somebody is, if nobody listens, you've got no power. I don't care how quote unquote right you are. If nobody listens, you've got no power. So the key to leadership is being listened to. If you think about the historical phenomenal leaders in our civilization, Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. King, Nelson Mandela, etc., they were listened to. And they didn't start out being listened to, but they were listened to. And that's what gave them ultimately the power to change civilization, to change nations, was they were listened to. And again, if you look at each of those examples, you'll find what did they all have in common? What they all had in common was certainly that they refused not to love. So whether it's with our kids, whether it's with people we work with, whether it's with the nation, being listened to is what's essential for any leader. We are only listened to by people who have the experience that we love and respect them. Just notice yourself. If you have the idea that somebody doesn't love or respect you, will you listen to them? No. So you being listened to also requires that whoever that is has the experience, that they have your love, they have your respect, they have your honor. It all starts there. Then people can truly consider what you say. So leading with love starts with being listened to. And what has us be listened to is giving our love to people. Now, giving your love to people is important then that you can distinguish between love as an emotion, I feel love. Gee, I feel like I love you or I don't, and love is a thought pattern, like, oh, I have loving thoughts or I don't. To love is a way of being. If you relate to love as an emotion, you may have the emotion or not. If you relate to love like a set of thoughts, you may have those thoughts or not. But love is a way of being. There's ways we be as human beings. We can be stingy, we can be generous. We can be respectful, we can be disrespectful. We don't have a say about our feelings. We don't have a say about our thoughts. But the one thing we have total say about is our way of being. Whether we're respectful or disrespectful, that's up to us. Whether we're generous or stingy, that is totally up to us. Whether we're loving or not is up to us. It's a way of being. So leading with love comes from the profound understanding that love is required to be listened to, leadership requires being listened to, and then it demands relating to love as a way of being, which means you have a say about it, a total say about it. Notice you can be loving no matter what emotions you're having. You could be happy and be loving, you could be sad and be loving. You could be invigorated and be loving, you could be tired and be loving. You could even be loving when you're irritated. We've probably all experienced that with small children or pets, quite frankly. So you can be loving no matter what emotions you're having, you can be loving no matter what thoughts you're having. I could have a thought that, you know, the person is, you know, not doing a good job and still be loving towards them. I could have a thought like I could that my relationship with them can never work out and still be loving with them. I can even have a thought like I should fire this person if they're my employee, or I should divorce this person if they're my partner and still be loving at all times under all circumstances. That's what we have a choice about. That's the key to being listened to, and therefore it's the key to leadership as parents, as executives, as political leaders, and anywhere in between. The key to leadership is leading with love.