Leadership and Love

The bottom line is that if you aren’t giving it everything you’ve got, and then some, you have been, or will be, upstaged. It happens in friendships, romantic interests, sports, our jobs, and in relationships with your own family.

There’s love, and then there’s LOVE. I believe that “love” can be qualified, that there are levels and compartments that are directly related to our abilities to actually feel love, as well as our abilities to show it. I know there are three types of love, and they are well-defined. I am thinking about things more basically, however.

 I have encountered people who have been so emotionally damaged that their abilities to feel and show love are stunted beyond what I can understand. Then there are the others whose emotions and passions run so deep and so intense that their abilities to feel and show love can make you feel like you are actually sitting on top of the world, enjoying a high that many seldom feel throughout an entire lifetime.

To break down how it feels:

A relationship with someone who is emotionally incapable of offering the kind of love that is all-enveloping: it feels empty, always lacking in some intangible component that make the recipient feel wholly accepted, desired, appreciated, and adored. If it involves a romantic interest, the lack of love feels like a black hole. It leaves people feeling stunted and powerless; just sitting and staring, and waiting. I don’t know what they wait for, but they are stuck in that perpetual state of longing. Their storehouse is not full…not even close. With family, a lack of love breeds contempt, feelings of inadequacy and ineptness, self-consciousness, and overall lack of belonging. Both situations are dangerous and both lead to one disaster or another. I have felt, and do feel, this emptiness in some of my relationships. The heartache it causes can be overwhelming and maddening.

On the other side of the coin, there is the kind of love is the kind that makes us all feel equipped to face the world. We have been armored with the most resistant armor available to humans: it’s empowering, intoxicating, joyous, intense, passionate, and invigorating. These relationships enable us to see our strengths, face our weaknesses, and engage in the sweetest moments of our dreams. They set us forth running at full speed to develop the friendship/romantic interest/familial relationship further and further, until we reach a level of love and trust that is beyond what we thought we were ever capable of feeling. The bonds last an entire lifetime, giving us the comfort of knowing that the other person is always there, regardless of geographical distance. I feel this love from only a handful of people in my life. These people have succeeded in upstaging every other individual I encounter. In fact, no one will ever measure up.

I consider the great leaders in history, and all the things that made them “Great Leaders.” I wonder if the ability to love with intensity was a component of who they were. I don’t think people who lack this ability can actually be great leaders or world changers. How can you possibly get people to follow you and believe in you if you are incapable of connecting with them? Is it the ethereal gift of connection that sets a foundation for our leaders? If we investigate the building blocks of leadership, is the ability to truly love at the center of the fundamentals? Would it not be right there with passion, vision, and determination? Can a true leader inspire hope if he/she is incapable of impassioned love?

I ask myself what kind of love people feel from me. Is it empowering? Enveloping? Comfortable? Does it leave them feeling prepared to move forward, to weather storms, to achieve great things?

Or am I cold and distant, or unavailable? What will my girls say about me? Will they tell people that I taught them what love looks and feels like? That, regardless of where I was, my expression of love towards them was full and dynamic? What would my friends say? Do I possess the ability to love so deeply, that my foundations of passion, determination, and vision could lead the nations?

Do you?