I just finished reading a book by Gabrielle Bernstein – “The Universe Has Your Back”. While the book focuses on teaching us how to transform fear into faith, the lessons can also be applied to leadership. One of the very powerful quotes is “Your purpose is to be joyful. Your purpose is to live with ease. Your purpose is to surrender to the love of the Universe so you can live a happy life. Accept the purpose of love, and your life will radically change this instant.” Now what leader would you rather follow, a leader that leads from the purpose of love or a leader that leads from the purpose of fear.

Leaders that lead from the heart will do the following:

• Show warmth, an interest in the well-being of others, and a desire to connect.
• Help others faced with a challenge.
• Keep their commitments.
• Appreciate, respect, encourage and empower.
• Take the time, especially when they don’t have time.
• Active listening.
• Treat others’ time as if it’s as important as theirs.
• Be as passionate about the growth of others as they are about their own.

Leaders that lead from fear often have the following:

• Lead by using their position instead of influencing behaviors.
• A track record of employee churn because they do not value people.
• Have a team walking on eggshells because mistakes are punished, quite often publicly
• A comfort in dysfunction. Whether at work of home, they enjoy arguing and intimidating others. Unfortunately this usually spills over into family situations.
• Teams that lack confidence due to shortcomings always being pointed out and always been told what went wrong.