When it comes to developing leadership and spreading motivation throughout a workplace community, love is a force that both trainers and corporate leaders should ignore at their peril.

And, while the words 'love' and 'leadership' are rarely uttered in the same sentence, traditional views on how to lead are changing at a rapid pace, so rather than waiting for love to be fully integrated into the corporate arena and dressed with a more technical title, forward-thinkers are embracing it and its ability to re-connect leaders with their passion for business, and also galvanise those around them. 

I’m not claiming to have stumbled across this concept myself, many successful leaders have admitted that love has been an essential ingredient to their own development. The American investor Warren Buffet once said: “Do they love the money, or love the business? My job is to make sure that I don’t do anything that kills that love of the business.”

So, we believe it is about time that love is bought back into the workplace, because the results of breaking down barriers and re-igniting the love and passion that people feel for work and business, are both immediate and transformational. 

"Passion with energy is infectious and helps those who have a love for what they do within the organisation to talk with volition." 

Here are four ways leaders can bring love back into the workplace, and reap the rewards of working with a community of shining eyes:

Hold up the mirror

Before you can infect the rest of your community with passion and love you need to find it yourself. In effect, you need to reconnect with your business and work out where in your journey you fell in love with the organisation’s values and culture in the first place. Like in any relationship, love needs nourishment.

Teach others to pass it on

If you want love to spread like wildfire across the business, so that the entire community re-ignites its organisational connection, you need to show people how. Passion demonstrated with energy is infectious and encourages those who have a love for what they do within the organisation to talk with volition. Creating a positive impact on how colleagues begin to show up. Get 10% of the organisation to show up with shining eyes and you begin to create a movement. When passion and energy are role modelled and there are no boundaries to love for leaders, people will yearn to experience the same.

Recognise love and passion 

It exists in the workplace, you have to identify it and harness its power, then nurture the love. It’s crucial not to dismiss individuals who appear to be difficult or restrictive – much to your surprise they too have passion, your role as a leader is to work out what their story is and learn to channel their passion in the right direction. Our core intrinsic motivator is to find relatedness among people, to be acknowledged and to make a difference. Identify where recognition, encouragement and strengths can be rewarded and highlight positive traits.

Find the balance between love and power

Love in leadership is not a weak form of leadership. As a leader, if you want to ignite passion among your community you have to think about the features of the organisation that would be most effective at drawing this emotion. Ask yourself what there is to love about the organisation, it could be the team spirit, the location, the industry, the mission and the people. Get the balance between love and power right and you’ve got a community that loves “showing up” and inevitably gives their heart and soul to the task at hand.

James Pentreath is the founder of Leadership Consulting Partners. The latest leadership one-day workshop Heart of Leadership is designed to reignite the ‘fire in the heart of individuals who wish to stand up and make a difference in their world. Download your Love and Leadership report in full at LeadershipDevelopmentProgramme.net