Great leaders genuinely care for and love the people they lead more than they love leading itself.  ~Rick Warren

Former CEO of Saab USA Joel Manby points out in his book Love Works that many organizations are great at measuring what he calls do goals—the success of the customer experience, employee satisfaction, safety results, brand strength, and financials. But very few measure what Manby calls be goals—those we set for how we want our leaders to treat each other and the members of their teams while they are working to accomplish the “do” goals.

In principle, the “be” goals measure how well a leader lives the core values and fits in with the culture. Manby believes that leaders should not only be measured on how well they achieve the “do” goals, but their performance on the “be” goals is also important. In fact, he believes that their compensation should be directly tied to how well they do on both; in order to even qualify to be a senior leader a person must excel at both.

To get the best measure of the “be” goals set for leaders, consider gathering anonymous 360-degree feedback from employees and peers, and getting feedback from seniors in person. Ask questions such as:

• How well does Bob listen?
• How willing is Bob to help others?
• How important to Bob is the happiness and success of the people he leads?
• How kind is Bob?
• How compassionate is Bob?
• How well does Bob live core value A (repeat for each value)?

In essence, we’re asking “How well does Bob love his team?” Of course, we’re not talking about some romantic feeling that people often confuse with love. We’re talking about acts of love—extending oneself for others’ benefit and treating them with kindness and compassion. This is what it takes to be the ultimate leader.

When leaders commit to measuring how well they love those around them, and how well the other leaders in the organization love those around them, they can dramatically improve the business outcomes for their organization.

Leadership and loving well, a not often thought of combination, but far more interdependent than many of us may be willing to admit. The week of Valentines may be a good time to consider be goals and think about how well you love your team.

Leadership means…”learning how to reason with one another. When you don’t have reason, you just collapse into a subhuman morass of non-engagement.”  ~N.T. Wright

This week I finished reading Susan Jeffers’ book Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. A statement from one of the final chapters continues to play on a loop in my mind: “To become involved is to reduce our fear.”

That idea of “becoming involved” in order to reduce our fear took me back to a blog post I first wrote almost six years ago. N.T. Wright’s image of the subhuman morass of non-engagement caused me to consider how non-engagement could be rooted in fear. The fear of a different view, the fear of conflict, the fear of being wrong, etc. so we remain uninvolved and consequently, nurse that fear.

N.T. Wright would say that we’ve slipped into a subhuman morass of non-engagement because of the collapse of discourse. In discourse, “you use reason to argue from premises [or assumptions] to conclusions so you can see why you disagree with people” says Wright. The last phrase of that sentence is worth repeating…so you can see why you disagree with people. He didn’t say, so that you can prove why you are right and others are wrong. Dr. Wright would say that we are not engaged in discourse but in bits and pieces of a shouting match.

The alternative to these shouting matches is differentiated unity. This is not a new term, but the concept may be new to some of us. The simplest definition is “a community of people who are united in their diversity.” It means we will maintain united even when faced with differences. We will still have boundaries, but we will identify the differences that do make a difference and the differences that don’t make a difference.

Destructive diversity has worked its way into our organizations. Destructive diversity manifests itself in conflict and many times we prefer to avoid conflict and instead we allow destructiveness to fester. We don’t want to “see why we disagree with people.” We want to argue our position and show everyone else why we are right. Anne Lamott, one of my favorite authors, said “You can either practice being right or practice being kind.”

Wright’s vivid image of the subhuman morass of non-engagement is one I’d prefer not to emulate.  As leaders, we are challenged to model differentiated unity. Imagine for a moment what it would look like if within your organization you were able to make the simple (yet difficult) shift from debating to prove who’s right, to engaging in reason to see why you disagree with people.

Don’t slip into the subhuman morass of non-engagement; become involved to reduce your fear.

Leaders: preserve the quality of human communication everywhere by promoting a balance between face-to-face and electronic communication. ~Mission statement for Kibbitz Nest Bookstore

Sign at a new bookstore I recently visited in Chicago: “We are proudly a wifi-free zone.” Their mission “is to preserve the quality of human communication everywhere by promoting a balance between face-to-face and electronic communication media.”

I watched an interview with Simon Sinek, author of Start with Why and other best-sellers, and I believe he would appreciate this new bookstore. He said that when he and his friends go out for the evening, they agree to take only one cell phone. That one phone is exclusively for the purpose of the group, to make a restaurant reservation, get an Uber, etc.

I recognize that I frequently write about listening. I also believe that it’s become a lost art, a low priority, and in many cases an unconscious oversight because we’ve formed new habits that have us tethered to our cell phones.

Leaders, of all people, I believe should be the models of what it means to be present and truly listen.

Years ago I worked for a president of a small college. He had many responsibilities: fundraising, planning, speaking, etc. But he always had time to listen to people. Even though it was very common for someone to be sitting outside his office waiting for “their turn,” I don’t recall ever hearing anyone complain if the president was slightly off schedule because we all knew he was listening to someone and we would be the next person to get his full attention.

Here are a couple of interactions I recently experienced on the other end of the spectrum. When discussing active listening in a supervisor training, one of the participants said that he “needed” to be constantly looking at his phone because his daughter was currently in another country. And, what if something was wrong?!

I observed a meeting between two people where one person informed the other person that they had just hired a new employee and needed to be available to answer any questions. They placed their phone upright on the table and I watched them glance at it every time there was any movement on the screen indicating any incoming communication.

By multi-tasking we think we are being more productive. Even though countless research studies conclude that all we are doing is switching our attention and consequently reducing our productivity.

We are sacrificing being present for at least presumably being available. Which would you rather have, a leader who is “available” with very limited focus or, a leader who is “present” and gives you 100% of their attention?

If leaders believe that they are better leaders by being tethered to their cell phone and being constantly “available,” they are depriving followers of their presence (and in the process being less productive).

I made my cake different colors because as people we’re each made up of different layers. ~Annika Coffman, 12-year-old contestant on Kids Baking Championship

During the very frigid last week of the year, I watched baking shows on the Food Network. I don’t bake a lot, mostly because if I did I would eat a lot. I especially enjoyed the Kids Baking Championship because I’m in awe of the talent, discipline, and maturity of these young bakers. I was recently watching the 2015 finale and Annika Coffman was one of the finalists. Their task was to bake a celebratory layered cake. When 12-year-old Annika was asked to describe her cake to the judges, she said, “I made my cake different colors because as people we’re each made up of different layers.” It was a cake to celebrate our differences and each person’s uniqueness. The judges—Duff Goldman and Valerie Bertinelli—who are never short on words, were speechless. They were taken aback by Annika’s depth and mature perspective.

Annika was modeling what is described on thekingcenter.org as part of the meaning of Martin Luther King Day—it is a peoples’ holiday.

“It is a day of interracial and intercultural cooperation and sharing. No other day of the year brings so many people from different cultural backgrounds together in such a vibrant spirit of brother and sisterhood…This is not a black holiday; it is a peoples’ holiday. And it is the young people of all races and religions who hold the keys to the fulfillment of his dream.”

This is quite the call to leaders, and I’m grateful that 12-year-old Annika is a young leader who is stepping up to that call.

Differences can be quickly judged, categorized, sorted, and stacked in a hierarchy. Or, differences can be celebrated.

Our culture expects us to evaluate how we “stack-up” against others and then find ways to claw our way to the top (sound like any “leaders” you know). Case and point. I do a lot of training on personality assessments. All of the assessments I’ve used state that your personality type “just is” and there is no good or bad, right or wrong. Even so, I am still asked and probed to identify “the best” personality type. We just can’t let go of comparing, so we judge and categorize instead of celebrate.

I believe that the most effective leaders authentically celebrate people.

Example. Bob Chapman is Chairman and CEO of Barry-Weihmiller Companies, a $1.7 billion global capital equipment and engineering consulting company that “prefers to measure its success by the way they touch the lives of people.” Chapman has built a culture dedicated to “bringing out the best in its people through communication, trust, celebration, respect, continuous improvement and responsible freedom.” He frequently speaks on the topic of “Truly Human Leadership.”

Learning from Annika Coffman to Bob Chapman, let’s celebrate MLK Day—a peoples’ holiday!