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Love at work
17th March 2023
Valentines Day last month got me thinking about love at work, I don’t mean romantic love but other forms of love that are equally, if not more, important in our lives. Just about every song, book, or film deals with love in one form or another. Yet love is still not a word you hear much in the workplace, perhaps owing to the many facets of the word. I’m talking about companionate love in which we care for one another with relationships based on connection, warmth, and compassion. Even at work, caring and compassionate relationships matter.
When we leave for work each day, we don’t leave our humanness at home. Our emotions and needs come with us. Contrary to popular belief, fear (rather than hate) is the opposite of love. Fear is a crippling emotion. Because we are terrified of being incompetent, fear leads us to act irrationally. We can all recall in embarrassment that moment when we did or said something particularly stupid, me included! As humans, we feel a wide range of emotions, yet they always stem from either love or fear.
We are driven by the need to be worthy of love and belonging, at work we all want to know that our colleagues and leaders respect us, recognise us and care for us. But to make a connection with a close colleague requires authenticity and vulnerability. That can sometimes feel uncomfortable in the workplace. This gets easier if we foster a sense of wonder, curiosity and genuine interest in one another.
Love itself is inherently selfless. And linked to being selfless is kindness, like the simple act of noticing when a colleague is having a bad day. As the Dalai Lama says, “Be kind whenever possible. It’s always possible.” Fostering love amongst us not only makes us happier but collective love enables us to be better together, achieving something that is much bigger and greater than ourselves. When we thrive, the children thrive.
Jo Coles, Head of HR, Learning Partners
Valentines Day last month got me thinking about love at work, I don’t mean romantic love but other forms of love that are equally, if not more, important in our lives. Just about every song, book, or film deals with love in one form or another. Yet love is still not a word you hear much in the workplace, perhaps owing to the many facets of the word. I’m talking about companionate love in which we care for one another with relationships based on connection, warmth, and compassion. Even at work, caring and compassionate relationships matter.
When we leave for work each day, we don’t leave our humanness at home. Our emotions and needs come with us. Contrary to popular belief, fear (rather than hate) is the opposite of love. Fear is a crippling emotion. Because we are terrified of being incompetent, fear leads us to act irrationally. We can all recall in embarrassment that moment when we did or said something particularly stupid, me included! As humans, we feel a wide range of emotions, yet they always stem from either love or fear.
We are driven by the need to be worthy of love and belonging, at work we all want to know that our colleagues and leaders respect us, recognise us and care for us. But to make a connection with a close colleague requires authenticity and vulnerability. That can sometimes feel uncomfortable in the workplace. This gets easier if we foster a sense of wonder, curiosity and genuine interest in one another.
Love itself is inherently selfless. And linked to being selfless is kindness, like the simple act of noticing when a colleague is having a bad day. As the Dalai Lama says, “Be kind whenever possible. It’s always possible.” Fostering love amongst us not only makes us happier but collective love enables us to be better together, achieving something that is much bigger and greater than ourselves. When we thrive, the children thrive.
Jo Coles, Head of HR, Learning Partners
