How to Be a Great Leader

I had a fascinating conversation with my girls the other day.

Amanda (8) was telling Lily (5) and I about her friends. She named this girl and that boy, it seemed as if her story included at least 5 different kids.

I noticed that Lily had a sad face on and I asked her what was up.

She said “I don't have that many friends.”

I said, “Sure you do! What about Sage and Bella and Emily and Jean-luc and Arwen. Those are all your friends.”

She said, “yeah, but I don't play with them all at the same time. I only like to play with them one at a time.”

I kinda laughed and joked “Why because you can only boss around one at a time?”

“Exactly.” She said nodding as if I understood her completely.

“You have to let other kids be the leader too, Lily”.

“I know.” She responded. “When they want to be leaders I let them.”

Sigh.

When you are in Kindergarten, qualities like empathy and compassion and certainly patience are still being developed, clearly.

But this got me thinking about leadership and what it means to be a great leader.

Words like integrity, patience, open-mindedness, generosity, empathy, and compassion come to mind.

And what are those qualities anyway?

As my Spiritual Teacher Selina would say, they are faces of love.

A great leader leads with Love. 

I've found that to be a powerful and satisfying way to lead my studio. Every business decision is made from a place of compassion and generosity. Development and training of employees and teachers come from a place of patience and integrity. The intention is to love and to serve through yoga and healing. Every decision is made from that place.

Since I've begun to do this consciously I have noticed an enormous increase in abundance and prosperity and overall success in the business. It is a nice place to be. Students say this. Teachers say this. Employees say this. Heck; I work from the studio even when I can work from home. I just love it here.

Now, running a yoga studio is much different than running a country. People are generally more agreeable and much more like-minded.

We watched how hard it was for Obama to lead with love. Yet, he did. He did it with tenacity and grit.

Leading with love and also tenacity and grit.

Yes. That is it. That is what makes a great leader.

So here we are, many of us with some heavy hearts about who our new leader is.

Now we will see, what it looks like, in our culture, when a leader leads from someplace other than love.

We will see what happens.

Personal growth is uncomfortable because shit gets stirred up that we don't want to see. But it is the same for the collective. We can't purge what we can't see.

So now what needs to be purged has the proverbial spotlight. Has the Big Job.

And its our job as Leaders in our lives, businesses, schools and churches to Lead with Love with tenacity and grit.

Teach love. Vibrate Love. BE LOVE.

Love is more powerful then fear. Dont' fear the next phase. Embrace it. LOVE it for all it will teach you.

Love it for all it offers us to teach our children.

Because they will inherit the earth.

And love always wins.