It’s often difficult to tell someone how important they are in our lives and how much we value them.  Yet, it often liberates them to find their potential.  The leadership journey starts wherever we call home and speaking someone’s love language is a leadership act.  It’s the leader’s job to facilitate the opening process so individuals can see opportunities in an ever-changing environment.  Leaders are verbally involved with people and they are accountable for the conversation that keeps the relationship alive and vibrant.

Why is it so hard to tell those dearest to us how much we feel for them?

I think it has something to do with vulnerability.  Maybe we can be braver leaders this year.  I’m going to try.

In the spirit of the approaching celebration I’ve dusted off my perennial treatise on Valentine’s Day Leadership.

With love,

Al Bolea….

The Valentine’s Day Leader

Valentine’s Day is a celebration about relationships, either existing or aspirational.  Although flowers, chocolates, and greeting cards are often involved, the core of a successful celebration is a conversation between two people.  The day is associated by legend with various religious saints; however, it is not now nor has ever really been a religious holiday.  It first became associated with romantic love by Geoffrey Chaucer in the Middle Ages when he wrote a poem about mating birds to honor the engagement of King Richard II to Anne of Bohemia.  Chaucer understood that “the conversation is the relationship” and he clearly understood the role of leadership.  Since then Valentine’s Day became global and is celebrated in mid-February throughout Europe, North America, Latin America, East Asia, Japan, China, India, and even the Middle East where the holiday is officially banned in some areas.

Valentine rituals are rooted in possibilities about the future and are laced with emotions and feelings of vulnerability.  Remember Dr. David Chapman and his “love language.”  Be there with the person, nowhere else; meet them on their turf and on their terms.

It takes courage to have these love-based conversations and we are reminded of the need to:

1-Put aside opinions, assessments, and interpretations – obey our intuition

2-Come out from behind ourselves and be “real” with each other

3-Control our background conversations as these trap us in useless thoughts

4-Manage the conversation to possibilities for each other

5-Control our listening – Be “generative” in awareness of ourselves, the other person, and the situation

6-Be aware of our self-image so we can see emerging realities with the other person

Remember Susan Scott, “A careful conversation is a failed conversation.”  The relationship….

1-Succeeds (fails) one conversation (missed) at a time

2-Succeeds (fails) gradually, then suddenly

3-A single conversation can change a life

Be a “Valentine’s Day Leader” and here is my secret formula to make it happen:

1-Experience the other person in the moment, with all of your senses, rather than through a narrative of the past that you have in your mind

2-Be a self-observer to know yourself better as a way to know the other person

3-Support the person in becoming self-aware and self-appreciated

4-Recognize the quantum impact your relationship has on everything and everyone around you

5-Pay attention to your attention – bring your unconscious feelings to your consciousness

6-Help the other person “catch” themselves when they are about to repeat unwanted patterns – help them see their power of choice