Love

THE TENSION

Love. The word does not appear often in leadership writing, and when it does, it tends to be softened into something more palatable - care, commitment, people-focus. But love, in the Being Framework, is the highest possible level of being with another person. In leadership, it is the most demanding quality there is.

“The most loving thing a leader can do is not always the kindest thing. Sometimes it is the most honest.”

THE SCENARIO

Charlotte Webb has been Spatial Data Management Team Lead at LIST - Land Information System Tasmania - for just over a year. Her team oversees Tasmania’s foundational spatial datasets: topography, cadastre, administrative boundaries. It is foundational infrastructure work, unglamorous in the best possible way, and Charlotte leads it with unassuming dedication.

Her team member Elliott has been in the role for three years. He is experienced, knowledgeable, and deeply invested in the team’s work. He is also, increasingly, resistant to change. The organisation has been moving towards a new data management platform, and Elliott has been a consistent voice of scepticism in every conversation about it - raising concerns, questioning timelines, and reliably finding reasons why the transition will not work.

Charlotte has been managing this carefully. She has acknowledged his concerns. She has included him in the planning process. She has hoped that involvement would shift the resistance.

It has not. And the team is starting to organise around Elliott’s scepticism. Meetings that should move forward are stalling at his objections. Two newer team members have started parroting his concerns rather than forming their own views.

Charlotte’s manager asks her directly: “Have you had the honest conversation with Elliott - not the managed one?”

Charlotte pauses. She has been managing Elliott’s feelings about the transition. She has not yet told him, clearly and directly, that his resistance is no longer just personal - it is affecting the team’s ability to move forward, and that needs to change.

WHAT’S DRIVING IT

Love, in the Being Framework, is the highest manifestation of care - and it transcends personal interests. Crucially, it is a quality that may not always be experienced as kindness, because affectionate concern may be expressed in a firm, stern, or uncomfortable manner, particularly where it is necessary to nurture in a way that is both supportive and preserves the dignity of the other person over time.

Charlotte’s reluctance to have the honest conversation with Elliott is not indifference. It comes from genuine care for him. But care that protects someone from honest feedback is not love in the fullest sense - it is a form of avoidance that wears the face of kindness. Elliott deserves to know clearly how his behaviour is landing and what the organisation needs from him. That conversation, done with warmth and directness, is the most genuinely caring thing Charlotte can offer.

Love in leadership is not the absence of difficult conversations. It is the willingness to have them precisely because you care about the person and the team enough to be honest.

A HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP WITH LOVE

A healthy relationship with love in leadership means you mostly experience both caring for and being cared for by the people around you - a genuine sense of connectedness and mutual regard. You are free to convey care without fear of judgement, and you are courageous enough to endure the discomfort of honesty when honesty is what the person in front of you actually needs.

In practice, this looks like Charlotte sitting with Elliott and saying: ‘I want to be honest with you because I respect you and I want you to succeed in this transition. Your concerns have been heard. What can’t continue is the impact your resistance is having on the rest of the team. I need you with us on this - not silent, but constructively engaged. Can we talk about what that would look like for you?’ That is love in leadership. It is not soft. It is the hardest conversation in the room.

REFLECTION PROMPTS

- Is there someone in your team who needs honest feedback that you have been substituting with managed conversations - in the name of care?

- What is the honest thing you would say to a team member if you were certain they could receive it? What is stopping you from saying it?

- What does the distinction between managing someone’s feelings and genuinely caring for their development look like in your leadership?

- Who on your team would benefit most from you being more honest with them - and what would that honesty, offered with warmth, actually sound like?

If the distinction between managed care and genuine love in leadership is one that landed somewhere real for you - The Being Profile explores how love operates in your way of leading - and what becomes available for your team when your care extends to the honest conversations, not just the comfortable ones. Get in touch at hello@mappingbeing.com.au

While the organisations referenced exist, the team lead, other people and the team name have been used for demonstration purposes only. Any resemblance to real-life people, teams, organisations or situations is purely coincidental.

Reference: Tashvir, A. (2021). BEING (p. 406). Engenesis Publications.

[Published: 12 October 2026]