Love in Leadership: Too Taboo?

By: Emilie Tydings, M.S.

Have you ever felt that ache of desire? That burning passion inside, longing for something?

That moment when the heat rises in your chest as a vision ignites inside you. A magnetic energy courses through your body of a mission so compelling it leaves you breathless.

We don’t often discuss leadership in these terms.

We focus on strategy. We emphasize efficiency, date-driven decisions, and scaling impact.

Useful. But the truth? Safe.

True leadership—the kind that moves people, transforms lives, and sparks revolutions—is anything but safe. It’s raw, pulsating with intensity.

It’s desire made manifest.

Love is the Fire That Drives Creation

A leader without love is a body without breath.

It is love—not logic—that pushes you forward when reason says quit. Love is the fire in your gut when your dream feels impossible. It’s the force that makes people stay long after the paycheck, that drives innovation, that makes the impossible inevitable.

Think of the last time you truly wanted something. The hunger. The ache. The undeniable pull in your bones. That’s love in motion. That’s leadership ignited.

A Moment That Empowered Me

I recall stepping onto the stage for the first time at the Virginia Farmers Market Association’s annual conference. My heart raced. My nerves buzzed. The topic? Endowments for long-term sustainability. On the surface, a dry subject. But for me, it was everything. It was about ensuring food access for everyone, forever. There were times in my life when food was scarce. As a teenager, my family sometimes relied on food banks. As a single mother, I found myself in the same place—facing empty cupboards, turning to farmers' markets for fresh food donations for my daughter and me.

This mission wasn’t just a concept. It was alive inside me. As I faced that room full of unfamiliar faces, that love morphed into fuel—passion, fire. My nervousness burned away, and something shifted. A palpable connection formed. The energy in the room crackled with something real.

In that moment, I realized the truth:

🔥 This is leadership.

🔥 This is power.

🔥 This is love in action.

The Seduction of Power

True leadership isn’t about control—it’s about attraction. The way your energy shifts a room before you even speak. The way your presence lingers in people’s minds, leaving an imprint they can’t shake.

Have you ever met someone who radiates presence? A charismatic leader who moves with such deep conviction that you feel it before you understand it?

That’s love fused with power. That’s leadership beyond words. Because love isn’t just a feeling—it’s a frequency. A resonance. A force that pulls people into something bigger than themselves.

Love is the Edge. And That’s Exactly Why It Works.

Love in leadership is not comfortable.

It disrupts. It demands. It calls people higher.

Love is the fire in your voice when you motivate others to rise up. It’s the electric charge in a moment of clarity—the kind that shakes you, that leaves you forever changed.

It’s the force that breaks cycles, dismantles old systems, and births new paradigms.

And yet, we treat it like a liability. Like something to be tamed, diluted, hidden beneath layers of strategy and structure. But here’s the question: Are you willing to lead with love?

Not the sanitized, performative kind. But the kind that burns. The kind that demands. The kind that creates. Because love isn’t just a nice idea.

🔥 It’s the fuel of revolutions.

🔥 It’s the pulse of true leadership.

🔥 It’s the only thing that ever really changes the world.

The Science Behind Passionate Leadership

This isn’t just poetic language—science backs it up.

💡 Neuroscience shows that leading with empathy and care activates the brain’s reward centers, enhancing trust, motivation, and performance in teams (Boyatzis et al., 2019).

💡 The heart generates the most powerful electromagnetic field in the human body, extending several feet beyond us and directly influencing those around us (McCraty et al., 2017).

💡 Studies from the HeartMath Institute reveal that when we experience emotions like love, appreciation, and compassion, our heart rhythms become more coherent—leading to improved cognitive function, emotional resilience, and decision-making (McCraty & Childre, 2010).

So when we say that love is a leadership force, we’re talking about actual energy transmission. The way you feel as a leader affects everyone in your space.

Tapping Into the Power of Love in Leadership

To harness this power:

❤️ Close your eyes and breathe. Feel the vision; don't just conceptualize it. Let it flow through your body. Where does it ignite? Where does it create tension?

❤️ Place your hands on your heart. Physically connect to your mission’s core. The heart’s electromagnetic field can influence others, making your passion contagious.

❤️ Visualize it vividly. Not as a distant goal, but as a living reality awaiting your embrace.

❤️ Let desire build. Passion isn’t reckless; it’s focused. Channel it. Allow it to expand within you until it’s undeniable.

This isn’t traditional leadership. This is sacred leadership—leadership that’s felt, not just observed.

If you’re ready to delve into the quantum power of love in leadership, to awaken your intuitive intellect and lead from a place of profound resonance, consider exploring The Heart of 3rd Eye Leadership.

This program is designed to help you unlock emotional intelligence, intuitive leadership, and harness the energetic impact of love as a transformative force.

Because love isn’t weakness. It’s the ultimate power. And when you lead with it?

As Sia would say: I'm unstoppable today. 

Sources

• Boyatzis, R. E., & Jack, A. I. (2018). The neuroscience of coaching. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 70(1), 11–27.

• McCraty, R., & Childre, D. (2010). Coherence: Bridging personal, social, and global health. Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine, 16(4), 10–24.

• McCraty, R., Atkinson, M., & Bradley, R. T. (2017). Electrophysiological evidence of intuition: Part 2. A system-wide process? The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, 10(2), 325–336.