Love is not weak, love is not a doormat, love does not compromise, but love is compassionate, listening and understanding. Love does not sit there with a smile on her face in submission. Love sprints headfirst into action. We all know the strength that we can garner when acting from a place of love. So why do we abandon it when situations get tough?

My theory is that we all lean back on our training, or how we have experienced others leading and managing through tough times or conflict conversations.  We naturally tend to approach these rationally as it allows us to distance ourselves from the situation and remove our emotional reactions.  But the moment we emotionally withdraw from a situation we disconnect from the people we are there to serve. We also perceive that leading whilst in touch with our emotions makes us somehow weaker than when we lead with logic.

But over and over again I have found this not to be true. A strong connection with another makes managing conflict or tough conversations easier as we are more open to seeing another's perspective or point of view.  It also supports authentic communication over-rehearsed narrative.  But no one teaches how to do this.

How do you lead with love when you are terminating someone’s contract, making someone redundant, or putting someone on a performance improvement plan? To begin with, I struggled with these aspects of my life. I felt that I was a hypocrite or a traitor to the cause of love. I felt that, again, I had to put on a mask that allowed me to play a role to get the job done, rather than being the “me” I had grown to love.

During this struggle, I lent on my professional training, I justified, and I fell straight back into my old habits and behaviours. How can I love someone who is under-performing, misbehaving or plain incompetent? The reality is that parents do it all the time, but in the workplace, it is challenging to move from frustration into a place of love. No matter what most business leaders say about caring for their people. When the shit hits the fan, everyone becomes a line on a spreadsheet.

Leading with love and compassion is one of the hardest things that you will ever do. It requires faith in what you are doing and an absolute determination to do what is right for the other person. It is so easy to think that love is being nice. Being loving and compassionate quite often requires you to choose another which they do not have the courage or ability to make. If someone is struggling in their role, then the cruellest thing you can do as a leader is to leave them there.

Every day that they are stuck in a position where they don’t love, or feel supported, is a day when they take their problems and drudgery back home. It is a day when their family and the world is not getting the best from that individual. It is a day that you are allowing them to waste their life. As a principled leader, can you allow someone to do that? But it is amazingly easy as a leader to ignore. We can get wrapped up in the constant rat race and fail to acknowledge the people in our very teams who are struggling.

Understanding someone well enough so that you can help them does not require you to be their friend or to know their life story. It requires your heart and ears to be open enough that you can hear their problems and distinguish between a bad day and a life that is being lost in the corporate noise. You need to give space for people to be, so that you can pick up on the signals of someone in distress - these signals can be incredibly subtle. It requires you to care for your people as human beings, not as commodities or assets. I hate the line “our greatest assets are our people”, no they are not. They are your business; without them nothing would happen. People are not assets to be counted on a spreadsheet, they are to be nurtured and supported, so that they can be the greatest versions of themselves. Anything less, and you are selling them and your business, short.

But as leaders, we must also realise that we are human beings, which means we are not perfect, we will have bad days, there will be people in our teams who push our buttons and potentially irritate us. So how do you balance that with compassionate leadership? How do you manage to authentically hold the space for others if they wind you up?

How do you have those tough conversations from love? You have to actively put yourself in their shoes and you need to leave your ego at the door. 

I have a technique that I use in especially tricky cases, where I sit down and write down everything that frustrates me about that individual: Is it their timekeeping? Attitude to a junior member of staff or problem customer? The ability to pass the buck, no matter what their job description says? I get it all down on paper, I don’t hold back, and then I pause. This process is not about me pulling together an argument for dismissal or anything formal; this technique is me trying to get my subconscious biases out of the way so that I can rationally and lovingly move forward with the conversation I need to have with that individual.

I then write down everything I know about them. Do they have kids? What is their home situation currently like? Are there any stressors I know about that are likely to be impacting their performance?

Then I tend to stand up, take a deep breath and shut my eyes. I picture myself sitting at their desk, in their space. I try to think about how they will be feeling, then pick up what I have written and read it from their perspective. I think about every response they would have to my comments. I align that with what I do know about their current situation, and then, most critically, I think about things I have not asked them recently.

Maybe they have an ill relative who they have to drive to the other side of town every morning.  Perhaps they are feeling lost and no longer know how to do their job and are feeling threatened by others in the organisation. Maybe they just don’t want to be in this role anymore but don’t have the courage or know-how to start the conversation at home, let alone with the boss. Whatever it is, I think about their views and write it down. Then, I re-read it.

I then shut my eyes again and feel how I need to proceed. Sometimes, the first thing I do is pick up the phone and just check in on the individual. This process is not about letting poor performance happen, but it is about treating each person as a human being.

In my experience, people very, very rarely turn up to work to do a poor job. But they are often in bad places that they don’t know how to get out of, or they are looking for more support than they are currently getting. We are too quick to judge others based on our standards and expectations. So, when I take the time to put myself in another’s shoes, I know I am giving the respect that I would want.

If I am still feeling frustrated or angry, I always step away, sleep on it, go for a walk and then come back to this again, until I can feel the right path forward.

This method may seem an awful lot of work to deal with someone not operating at their potential, but for me, it ensures that I am approaching the conversation with compassion and respect for the individual holistically, not just as a line on a spreadsheet that is not delivering. It has also been my experience, that approaching tough conversations differently, changes the outcome. I have seen poor performers change overnight, once they feel listened to and supported. We all want to be heard, we all want to be treated kindly, but we rarely take the time to do that for another.

Treat people how you want to be treated is the golden rule for me.

There are some cases where you are not going to change your decision, or you may not be in a position to impact the outcome. Mass redundancies are one of these times, but in these cases, I am now able to engage in a conversation that is based in love, compassion and understanding.

Love allows you to start a discourse based on helping that individual become the best version of themselves. No one sets out in life to be a complete jerk or a bully. Most of the time, people end up there because they are riddled with fear and self-doubt. Acknowledging this, even just to yourself, will give you the patience to deal with any situation, with compassion and grace. Remember, this is not about allowing someone to coast or keeping on people that are no longer needed in your business. Strong leadership is about respecting and loving people enough to show them who they could be and how they should be treated.

It took me time, maturity and a hell of a lot of courage to get to the point where I could dive into another’s feelings and face my demons about how to lead in conflict.

Honestly, I have not walked out of every performance conversation or conflict situation with hugs all around and high fives for great discussions. But I have walked out knowing that I sat there with them, loved them and engaged in a manner that was founded on compassion and understanding. I have done the best I could on that day. I know it was not just about getting the job done but doing it in a way that honoured each person in the room. I know it was done by my best self and that is all I can ask of myself, or anyone else.

by Helen Honisett

Helen is a seasoned and successful business leader with a rare blend of expertise in learning and advanced technology. Her specialism is in managing and growing businesses through change by leading sales organisations in a way that pivots the whole organisation around the customer.

Helen is the author of the book Defy Expectations, that looks at how leading with love, integrity and trust can build and bond teams much more effectively than traditional methods.  In fact, the methodology described in the book led to a 12% growth in sales revenue and a 2% decrease in overall cost when last implemented. Available for purchase at Amazon

Defy Expectations has created a free on-line course “Introduction to Love Leadership” to help you transition to a more compassionate and effective way to lead.

www.defyexpectations.co.uk/training

Photo by Sarah Wolfe on Unsplash