Leadership Lessons from A Strength to Love by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
It’s funny to me that I am posting these reflections on Valentine’s Day 2023. This is a US holiday that the media and influencers market as a day of love between two people. These two people are seen as a single, separate existence that supersedes all other relationships. In these curated pictures, love seems simple, elegant, and timeless. And on the surface, love can be these images at times. However, love is much bigger than these curated advertisements.
I write a lot about business and social innovation, so a post on love may seem out of place. If you will stay with me, then you will learn why love is very closely connected to work. Last year I read the Strength to Love by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This book is a series of 15 sermons given over several years by Dr. King that emulate his philosophy on nonviolence. I read this book because I wanted to learn more about nonviolence in a time where violence was and is so rampant in the United States.
From a business perspective, I see violence happening in our work environments. The word “violence” may seem harsh, but it’s true. Some examples include mass layoffs while senior leaders are paid millions of dollars, employees being forced back into the office without input or choice, and people being paid below the cost of living and expected to just “suck it up” and “get over it.” And violence happens in our work environments through systems that promote inequality and divisiveness.
So, how do Dr. King, nonviolence, love, and business go together? The quote below shows how Dr. King wove these concepts into a sense of community and interdependence.
"We are everlasting debtors to known and unknown men and women. We do not finish breakfast without being dependent on more than half of the world…
In a real sense, all life is interrelated. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality." (Sermon: The Man Who Was A Fool)
How we show up is tied to our business performance. We are shaped by each other and our experiences, which impacts how we show up in our relationships and our professional work. To say that we are successful purely by our own measures and intellect is a false narrative. We are part of a greater community who has supported us, or as Dr. King says, “everlasting debtors.”
Strong and enduring leaders that truly motivate people value teams over the individual and see performance as interrelated relationships and an interconnectedness to the world. Sowing nonviolence into our world and our work environments require us to prioritize connection and community above individual merit. That’s hard to do when so many of our business systems are built to celebrate individual performance and success. Here are three ways to build interconnectedness as a leader:
1. Build relationships with each of your team members, AND offer ways to build connectedness as a team through time shared without a specific work goal.
2. Prioritize team goals over individual goals in performance plans and reviews. If possible, tie merit increases to team performance versus individual contribution.
3. Schedule regular team meetings that offer time to problem solve current issues, plan for the future, and evaluate each other’s capacity to work in the coming weeks.
Dr. King and so many civil rights leaders have shouted from the mountaintops that our world is interconnected and relationships with each other create the change we desperately need. As a leader, how will you live out this interconnectedness and sow nonviolence through your actions. As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said, “Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.”
Photo by Unseen Histories on Unsplash