There’s nothing wrong with the idea of love, other than perhaps the word itself, as its application and meaning depends greatly on the context in which the word is used. Many languages have multiple words for various aspects of love, but English somewhat clumsily portrays every form of love in a single word.
Our culture greatly influences our use of and the meaning we assign to ‘love’. To highlight this fact, we’ve outlined a few of our own categories and cultural definitions of ‘love’:
First, is ‘like-love’.
It portrays love as the highest degree of liking something. It sounds like …. ‘Oh, I love that car’, ‘I love that pizza’, or ‘I love that movie’. It’s rooted in the projection of a human emotional attachment to an object or idea.
Second, is ‘relational love’.
This love is focused on the expression of emotional attachment to another person, but it isn’t romantic in nature. Consider the love a mom or dad has for their children. Or the love you may have for another family member or a best friend. The emotional attachments of these relationships are typically accompanied with a deep bond and intense commitment.”
Third, is ‘romantic love’
where love is still rooted in the projection of human emotional attachment to a person, but it’s accompanied with a physical attraction or connection. In its purest context, this love is deeply meaningful and personal.
And then, physical or sexual love
Romantic love is socially misconstrued and associated with simply the physical or sexual aspect of relationships … which can be one of the most intimate expressions of love, or one of the shallowest … which has little to do with love.
Based on these definitions and uses of the word ‘love’, it’s understandable why so many people see little value in love as a leadership principle or an organizational goal. For business people, these emotionally driven forms of love appear useful only to the degree they can be leveraged in marketing and advertising campaigns to drive sales. From a leadership perspective, these forms of love are relatively weak … and worthless.
Love, as L2 … placing a high value on others … is a viable and dynamic life and leadership principle. This type of love is focused on a selfless and ‘other’s focused’ approach to living and leading. The cultural and emotional ‘baggage’ associated with the word love almost requires (demands) a new word that narrows a viable and value-creating definition of love. Thus, L2 is born … a love that considers everyone as valuable and seeks to demonstrate that value in thought, communications and action. It is Love Lived … or … Loving Leadership … in action.