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Machiavelli once asked, “Is it far better to be loved or feared?” According to Machiavelli, fear is absolutely necessary to lead, command, and collaborate with an organization. He wrote, “for a prince who leads his own army, it is imperative for him to observe cruelty because that is the only way he can command his soldiers’ absolute respect.”

As organizations confront the challenges of globalization and rapidly changing technology, coercive methods of leadership in order to lead, command, and collaborate are no longer applicable. Organizations are evolving to become learning organizations. Learning organizations convert data to knowledge. Then, knowledge is shared with teams of people, in multiple locations, all over the world. As organizations embrace learning, they must also learn to teach. For learning and teaching go hand-in-hand.

Teams of people must now learn to use knowledge and share that knowledge with others within the organization all over the world. There is no room for fear in a learning organization. Organizations in this era require love, kindness, and compassion to establish trust and positively impact all stakeholders.

Lead with love

Leadership is an act of love. Love toward suppliers, customers, shareholders, creditors, government, society, environment, management, and employees. Love toward stakeholders implies a deep level of respect that cannot be characterized as disingenuous. Leading with love is awareness that you have the power to influence others and an example to follow.

Command with kindness

Leading is a great obligation. Commanding people requires the acknowledgment of an ethical obligation towards stakeholders. Commanding with kindness is an expression of gratitude in the form of consideration and respect. How you lead your team will determine how your team will lead others.

Collaborate with compassion

Collaboration with people in teams requires a deeper understanding of culture. Recognizing the culture or the rituals, norms and values, and underlying assumptions or beliefs represented through organizational culture, nationality, and ethnicity is key to leading groups. Compassion is necessary to accept and embrace differences and develop teams around a common goal. Collaborating with compassion is about respecting all team members and drawing out each unique perspective to add value to the overall goal.

Benefits

As we learn to Lead with love, Command with kindness, and Collaborate with compassion we will teach others to trust, protocol for the treatment of people, and positively impact stakeholders. Without trust, you cannot create or sustain life-long relationships. Trust will lead to respect. And respect will lead to leadership.

Within the organization many benefits will be achieved. As we let go of our competitive tendencies, sharing will reduce redundancy, improve problem solving, and increase the feedback loop of information. Access to knowledge through sharing reduces redundancy and improves problem solving. Using proven solutions and converting this information to case studies teaches a methodology for problem solving. It also creates a feedback loop. Once the problem solving methodology is learned new perspectives and insights update previous knowledge.

Leading people is a great obligation. People are the core of all organizations. As organizations evolve to become learning organizations, we must use a new method of leadership, which develops trust, respect, gratitude for all stakeholders and teaches how to lead. Love, kindness, and compassion is key to lead, command, and collaborate. So I ask you now, “Is it far better to be loved or feared?”

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