Lead with love

I was interviewed by a man named Gerry Ellis of the Talking Apes podcast, and he pointed out something I had begun to notice: a lot of the solutions my guests talk about have to do with love.

Sometime last year in 2025, I began to connect the dots in these conversations—that love is the answer to a lot of leadership, ecological, and sustainability problems. Dare I say, all of them.

The great American essayist and writer bell hooks (lowercase is how she spelled her name) wrote in her book All About Love that ‘love cannot exist where domination is present.’

Many people in patriarchal society have confused domination for order, merit, and justice. But there is no justice in domination. It isn’t orderly, and it is completely without merit. Someone staying on top, putting their thumb on the scales, whatever the cost, isn’t an accomplishment. It’s tyranny.

When I look at a place—like the one I’m living in—a question I like to ask myself is: “Is this how I would treat a place I love?”

I see people sleeping on the street every single day. There is plenty of money, empty units, and labor available to house, feed, clothe, and provide medical attention to every single one of them. The fact that they remain on the street without food, shelter, clothing, or medical attention is a deliberate choice of policy, tax code, and resource distribution that can be changed. This isn’t me preaching. It is just a literal fact.

If you claim to love something, you cannot let it suffer; you cannot let it bleed; you cannot let it hang out to dry. You cherish it with every fibre of your being.

Leading with love looks a lot like doing the opposite of what people with power say is a priority. If you want to know why bad things persist or continually get worse, ask who benefits most right now. Follow the money.

Another reason why is that we have convinced ourselves that something cannot sustain unless it is “profitable.” But the opposite is often true. Profit is not a requirement for sustainability. We have scores of data points to show us this isn’t the case. We have public institutions, public libraries, non-profit organizations, all of which are sustainable without profit. People work there. They feed families from that pay.

And yet, increasingly, we seem to be monetizing that which used to be in the public domain.

Why?

I’ve spent many years making art for free. I write this blog for free. We have volunteer firefighters, doctors, pro bono lawyers, editors, engineers, even construction workers, and open-source coders. If it really needs to be done and people care enough, people will do the work.

Knowing that what you are doing is making a tangible, needed impact is a currency without equal.

The idea that a job is only a job, and can only truly be incentivized by pay, is a lie. No one would make art if that were the case. No one would bother to learn another language. No one would put themselves in harm's way for another person, ever. That has never been the case for the many thousands of years humans have been alive, and it isn’t the case now. People are problem solvers and creators. We didn’t invent things to appease shareholders. We invented them because we needed them.

So, when the people we elect to care for our unhoused sisters and brothers fail to do it, it blows our minds. We search for answers. Because of a lack of money? No. It is a lack of will. There is more than enough money there for it.

If you are leading with love, you will find a way to make the things happen that you prioritize.

We always seem to have enough resources for almost anything else, but never enough when it comes to healthcare, or education, or housing. The answer is we actually do; our systems and leaders just aren’t prioritizing it.

Lead with love, and you move mountains to make things happen.

Mike

Photo Credit: A park in the city of Morioka, Japan. Photo by me.