Before you can lift others UP as a loving leader you first have to put DOWN your personal baggage.

In sorting through your personal baggage, a leader must first seek to understand and accept:

• • • • • • • • • • Who they are
                  • Why they do what they do
                  • Why they think the way they think and
                  • Why they feel the way they feel.

Traveling lighter with near-empty personal baggage, the emerging leader embarks on “a great journey into your own soul” as the former CEO at General Electric Jeff Immelt defined the initial step in becoming a leader.

However, in setting out on that journey into your own soul, emerging loving leaders have to beware of tripping over their own egos when they need too much and heed too little.

And most significantly, nascent loving leaders have to beware — and be wary —- of the following personal baggage (a.k.a. Needs) that can jeopardize their ability to love and undermine their capacity to lead.

In unpacking your personal baggage, the most effective leaders are vigilant in discovering and containing what author Leo Buscaglia defined as Nine Needs in his book Loving Each Other:

The Need to be Always Right.
The Need to be First in Everything.
The Need to be Consistently in Control.
The Need to be Perfect.
The Need to be Loved by Everyone.
The Need to Possess.
The Need to Blame.
The Need to Dominate.
The Need to Manipulate.

You can find the above excerpt and other examples of the bottom-line impact of empathy in LOVING Like a Leader — one of three books in The Leadership Mints Series — now available on Amazon.com — designed to help leaders refresh their feeling for leading.

The two other books in The Leadership Mints Series include THINKING Like a Leader and SPEAKING Like a Leader.