What If Love Was The Strategy? | Yuliia Paslon | TEDxAl Wasl

Key Concepts

• Love as Action, Not Feeling: The core argument that love in leadership is demonstrated through consistent actions rather than an emotional state.
• Transactional vs. Unconditional Love: Contrasting love based on performance and rewards with love that is inherent and consistent.
• Fear vs. Love in Leadership: Exploring how fear can drive behavior (compliance, risk aversion) versus how love fosters thriving, creativity, and trust.
• Neuroplasticity and Perception Reframing: The brain's ability to change and how intentional practices can shift focus from threats to positive aspects.
• Trust Dividend: The tangible benefits of a high-trust culture, including increased motivation, reduced absenteeism, and lower turnover.
• Grace in Leadership: Creating a safe environment for risk-taking and mistakes, fostering growth without fear of punishment.
• Happiness as a Default State: The idea that humans are naturally happy, and leadership's role is to not impede this state.

Love as Action: Redefining Leadership

Julia Hasslon challenges the conventional understanding of love, asserting that in leadership, it is not a feeling but a set of actions that bring out the best in individuals without expecting anything in return. This approach, she argues, leads to people not just performing but thriving. She contrasts this with a transactional upbringing where love was conditional on performance, a mindset she had to unlearn.

The Impact of Fear and the Need for Love

Hasslon recounts her experience taking over a department, initially driven by fear of making mistakes, a feeling amplified by the pandemic's uncertainty. She realized that her team needed love, not her fear disguised as responsibility. Drawing on Jim Carrey's quote, "You can fail at what you don't want. So you might as well take a chance on doing what you love," she emphasizes that while fear is inherent, leaders can choose to be its driver or passenger.

The Trap of High Achievement and Burnout

As a high achiever, Hasslon admits to a past obsession with getting things done, which, while effective, could lead to forgetting the importance of love and soul in her work. This, she warns, results in burnout, death of creativity, trust, and joy. She learned that past successes and even great results achieved at the expense of team spirit are unsustainable and lead to exhaustion and decreased productivity.

Reframing Perception: From Threats to Bright Spots

Hasslon identifies a learned behavior, inherited from generations shaped by trauma, of scanning for danger first rather than beauty. This "mind of a seal" perspective, while a useful skill for risk identification, can become a default lens. She highlights the brain's neuroplasticity, its ability to change. To counter this, she trained her brain to see bright spots first.

The "Find Hearts" Exercise

A practical methodology discussed is the "find hearts" game, inspired by a podcast. This involves intentionally looking for heart shapes in the environment during daily activities like morning runs. This practice is rooted in psychology and works by training the reticular activating system to reframe perception through focused attention and daily habits. The more one practices, the more the brain learns to notice beauty and connection.

The Leadership Truth: Seen and Heard

Hasslon posits that when people feel seen and heard, they give their best. Fear can only compel compliance, yielding just enough to keep a job. Quoting John Cleese on creativity and management, she states that the fear of making a mistake is a significant impediment to creativity. True playfulness requires an openness to outcomes, which is impossible when frightened of making wrong moves. The "find hearts" exercise, therefore, trains leaders to spot possibilities, not just problems, and to create a space where people feel free to play, take risks, and be creative.

Leading with Love: Empowering Others

Hasslon defines her approach to "love in leadership" through an anecdote where a teammate complimented her, "You always gave us the bricks to build the wall." This signifies not providing answers but explaining processes, equipping individuals with tools and confidence to build their own success. This empowers people to make decisions, armed with knowledge and supported by the leader, making them "unstoppable" and fostering long-term commitment.

The Power of Mood and Happiness

Mel Robbins' quote, "Your mood is the weather of your company," is cited to illustrate how positive elements, like adding a comedy slide to serious meetings, can create connection, lift spirits, and strengthen bonds. This seemingly small action can boost creativity and innovation. Mogulat, a former Google X executive, suggests that happiness is our default state, disrupted by mismatches between expectations and reality. Leadership's responsibility, therefore, is not to impede this default state.

Love as a Strategic Investment

Hasslon argues that love in leadership, manifested through small, consistent actions that reduce fear, build trust, and restore happiness, is strategic. It is not about feelings or slogans but about tangible outcomes. Data supports this:

• University of Warwick: Happy individuals are 12% more productive.
• Oxford Call Center Study: Happy workers are 13% more productive (calls per hour and conversion rates).
• Anchors: A positive mindset makes the brain up to 31% more productive.
• Sales Performance: Improved by 37% with happiness.
• Google Workplace Happiness Initiatives: Employee satisfaction jumped by 37%, impacting innovation and retention.

The conclusion is that love is not "soft" but strategic, measurable, and pays back in performance, retention, and innovation.

Faith, Grace, and Trust

Hasslon emphasizes that leadership without faith (trust in people's capabilities and their ability to learn from mistakes) devolves into micromanagement, which kills trust. Grace in leadership is not about lowering standards but creating a space for risk-taking and growth without fear of humiliation or punishment. In a globalized workplace, love, expressed as action, respect, empathy, and encouragement, is a universal language that transcends borders and fosters collaboration.

The Trust Dividend

MIT's loan research indicates that in high-trust cultures:

• Motivation jumps by 260%.
• Absenteeism drops by 41%.
• People are 50% less likely to leave.

Franklin Covey terms this the "trust dividend." Leaders who understand that facing their people with trust is a strategic move, not naive, are more effective.

Conclusion: Love as a Strategic Imperative

Hasslon reiterates her definition of love: a set of actions that bring out the best in you without expecting anything in return. This action radiates belonging, joy, calm, and peace, prompting others to reciprocate by bringing out their best. She offers practical advice: "Speak without being offensive, listen without being defensive, and always always leave your opponent with their dignity."

The concluding questions for leaders are:

• If love was a strategy, what would you change first?
• How would you treat your people differently tomorrow morning?
• How would you show up differently at your next meeting?

The final message is that leadership is about building a structure where everyone's contribution matters, and while fear can be a passenger, love should drive.