“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. ”
I believe that most people would agree that caring for others, even if you don’t know them, is the right thing to do. This level of kindness or love or respect is a part of every world religion. It is the one thing that all of our Gods agree on: ‘love thy neighbor’ --with no exceptions. It was the golden rule we were taught in school and scouts—and if you were lucky, at home. And I have never in all of my 54 years seen a more desperate time to stop what we were all doing and have a national day of kindness, a focus on caring for others, and a collective prayer of love. America needs a serious time-out to regroup and reconnect with this idea. Maybe the whole world does. We need love and kindness and caring for our fellow man to be cool again. We need kindness to be the coolest thing ever.
Yes, love is patient and love is kind. But love is also really hard. Love, kindness, care. These are not easy or weak emotions. They hold up the world. They require strength, patience and willingness to hold the other end of the rope—the willingness to be the bad guy, to be unpopular, the willingness to hold what is hard. The willingness to hold your stuff and their stuff. The willingness to do what you don’t want to do, to be inconvenienced, and at times to be burdened. Love requires us to hold the most difficult, impatient, cranky, frustrated, and stubborn aspects of ourselves and of others. Love requires muscles.
I’m not sure when it started, when it became a sign of weakness to be kind, to show love. When did acting on behalf of people, taking care of people, or protecting people become weak? When did love become a one way street that is only about ‘whether someone loves me?’ I’m sure it didn’t start with the President who behaves like a 7th grade bully but he has certainly worked hard to make a brand name of meanness and contempt. He demands love and adoration but cannot bring himself to exhibit it towards others. And now too many people are mimicking his words or behavior-- but the truth is we know better. All of us, even the people following him. Any thinking adult knows better. We know being mean isn’t the answer. The reason this bad behavior works in 7th grade is that it’s hard to feel a sense of belonging across difference when you are young and haven’t yet built a sense of self. It’s easier to connect around the things or people you don’t like—than find connections in the things you do like—or harder yet, hold that we could like each other and be different. That is a recognizable struggle of the young. But we grown-ups (and many young people) know better and we can do better. Even when we don’t want to. Even when it is hard.
I am especially talking to leaders right now because the recovery from the pandemic is going to be a long, hard struggle and in order to come out of this traumatic situation more whole than we went in we are going to need all of the kindness, love and care we can create. Leaders of states, communities and towns. Leaders of organizations, businesses, and colleges. Leaders of schools, churches, and clubs. Leaders of groups, neighborhoods and families. For all the leaders out there (and I really count every citizen as a leader) if you thought shutting down the world for the pandemic was the hardest thing you have had to do as a leader—wait for the recovery. Reopening the country is a bigger leadership challenge than shutting it down. And that terrifies me because I am a leadership consultant and I’m not sure I’ve ever witnessed a greater failure in leadership than the United States in the month of March. It was like watching a slow-motion car crash: leader after leader waiting to act. Waiting to follow someone else. Waiting for someone else to act to create the cover of their decision so no one could accuse them of being ‘weak’ or ‘making the wrong move.’
Leadership is the act of acting on behalf of someone else or something bigger than yourself. Leadership is working with and supporting other people to use their gifts to accomplish a goal. Leadership is an act of love and caring—of making hard decisions and risking the blowback that comes from them. I was introduced to the idea that leadership is an act of love because my first big leadership position at the age of 21 was as a waterfront director at a day camp for 450 kids. I was responsible every single day for 450 of other people’s children. So when the skies darkened and it looked like thunderstorms (long before the age of the weather app) I cancelled swimming, the most popular activity at camp. I had to tolerate the rage from kids, counselors and parents alike on multiple occasions. I spent many years working on waterfronts, leading canoe trips, counseling in residential treatment, and teaching in schools and colleges working with other people’s children. When you work with other people’s children you not only worry about the children, but you imagine the conversation with every parent or caregiver explaining to them about why their child was or was not kept safe based on your decisions and actions. When you work with other people’s children you know that you hold in your heart and your actions the most precious asset a family has. Working with other people’s children makes it easy to lead from a place of love, kindness and care. In fact, it’s your only option.
But really, don’t we all work with other people’s children? Or other people’s parents? Other people’s grandparents? Whether they are 8 or they are 8o? Aren’t they all a human in need of our kindness? Shouldn’t all of our leadership decisions be held with the level of care that we are responsible for the greatest asset of a family or community? Recovering from the pandemic is going to require all of us to simultaneously hold the losses of this year with the hope for the future. It’s going to require us to create a solid platform from which to recover. It’s going to require us to connect and communicate with people in ways we never had to before and across hurt, and frustration and difference in ways we never had to before. And we are going to need to hold all of these leadership challenges with love and kindness and this behavior is a good bet because love never fails. So, let’s make it easier to lead with love and kindness. Let’s make love and kindness cool again. Let’s make love and kindness the coolest thing ever.
© 2020 Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD