Leading with Love: What Business Can Learn from Ancient Spiritual Traditions

Episode recap:

Marcel discussed his new book, Humane Leadership and the spiritual/religious background of his principles of love and action, which he developed after experiencing poor management at a hospital. He emphasized the importance of leaders caring for their employees and shared research on how principles and practices from ancient religious traditions principles can be applied in leadership contexts. Marcel encouraged leaders to implement his five radical principles of love in action to maximize human potential and achieve business success.

For bonus content of the book not available anywhere else, visit Marcel’s Substack platform and subscribe at Marcelschwantes.substack.com.

Bio:

Marcel Schwantes is a speaker, author, and acclaimed executive coach with a global following. Marcel delivers presentations, workshops, courses, and coaching programs about the human side of business and how cultures of care, connection, and belonging power companies to thrive and outperform the competition. 

Quotes:

• "If engagement is high, you're going to have high performance, which is very good for business. Everything goes back to leading with love and care."
• "Leadership is patient, kind, humble, advocates for people, and is trustworthy."
• "Those at the top are the ones who care enough for people's well-being, mental health, and commitment to the job."

Takeaways:

• Listeners to get curious about leadership practices in their organizations if they notice low employee motivation, high turnover, or decreased engagement.
• Leaders and managers to assess how they are leading and caring for their people, especially if experiencing issues with retention or quiet quitting.
• Organizations to consider implementing the 5 radical principles of love in action (patience, kindness, humility, advocacy, and trustworthiness) to improve leadership and employee experience.
• Leaders to explore ways to create more actionable, practical love and care in their current situations to maximize human potential and improve business outcomes.

Timestamps:

[00:03] Why Toxic Leadership Nearly Broke Me at Work

[02:30] What Top-Down Workplaces Do to Your Body

[04:00] Why Love and Care Actually Boost Performance

[05:30] What Ancient Wisdom Teaches About Good Leaders

[06:45] Five Traits Every Great Leader Has in Common

[07:30] What Most Leaders Miss About Team Motivation

[08:30] How to Help People Do Their Best Work Every Day

Conclusion:

Leadership becomes more effective when it's rooted in care, respect, and a focus on people rather than control. Strong teams don't grow from rigid structures, but from spaces where people feel safe, heard, and trusted. When leaders prioritize connection and support, it encourages openness and better performance. The most productive workplaces are built on shared trust, not fear. It's through this kind of leadership that real progress happens.

Links/Resources:

The book: 

Humane Leadership: Lead with Radical Love, Be a Kick-Ass Boss 

Substack: https://marcelschwantes.substack.com/

LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/marcelschwantes/

Transcript

Marcel Schwantes  00:03

Hey, gang, it's just you and me today. Glad to have you on so, you know, I get a lot of questions. Now that the book is being launched and I have a full PR campaign, I'm getting a lot of questions about the sort of religious background to how I came up with my principles of love and action. Well, here's the gist. When I came out of this period of working through working for a very toxic management structure at the hospital that I was in for two years, and if you read the book, or if you've read, if you've listened to this podcast over the years, you've probably heard this story many times, right? I was in an environment where the management structure was so top down and so command and control and so stifling and high pressure. In other words, it was so dehumanizing that the stress took such a toll on me that my back went out and I was paralyzed for a couple of months. Well, not only did I have to recover physically from being paralyzed from the weight down, but you know, there's also a mental and emotional toll that also comes with that. So there was that recovery. And, you know, this type of thing goes on everywhere, even in today's day and age of dei and belonging, this stuff happens. There is this, this understanding now that we are elevating the wrong people to leadership roles at the highest level that don't have the competencies to lead other human beings through love and care. Okay, so that's the whole premise of the book. So what's the religious land on this? Okay, first of all, it's not a Christian book, it's not a faith based book, it's a business book, but when I came out of that environment, I started to figure out that the best way to lead was through people that love people. So what that means is that if you're going to be in an environment where you have high performance, people are flourishing on the job. 

There's high engagement. Often the case is that those at the top are the ones that care enough for people's well being, for people's mental health state, for their commitment to the job, etc, and they create the conditions necessary for the employee experience to be really high and joyful and full of full of energy and excitement and enthusiasm, right? So when you come to those workplaces that are set up that way, everything points back to leadership as the catalyst for creating those conditions. And so when you have that experience as an employee, well, guess what? Engagement is going to be high. And if engagement is high, and here's the process, if engagement is high, you're going to have high performance, and that's very good for business. So everything goes back to leading with love and care. And so when I started to investigate, I took a different route to my research. We already know that there's enough research out there on leadership and positive Positive Psychology and Organizational Behavior that points to strong cultures being affected by really good leaders. So I know that to be the case, because I'm all over the research and the literature and the case studies, right? But I wanted to find out, you know, religious world views, and if you if you trace communities of practice in most religious religious faiths, whether it's whatever your religious faith is, if you come from a Christian background, a Jewish background, if, if you come from a Bucha background, there those communities of practice. 

Have learned that there are certain principles that have applied throughout the ages where people learn to be in community and to care for one another and so when I started to poke around in the religious world of what makes those communities tick and and you know what? What makes those religious communities sustainable for over 1000s of years? I found it in ancient texts. I went through the Bible and basically boiled it down to. Patience, kindness, humility, advocacy and trust or trustworthiness. So that was hundreds of hours of me pouring through ancient text. So that's great that I found that to be true for religious communities. Well, does that hold up in the 21st century in a leadership context in the business world? Well, hello, of course it does. Right? There are countless studies on all of those tenants. So when you apply it in leadership, then it becomes like this, leadership is patient, leadership is kind, leadership is humble, leadership advocates for people, and leadership is trustworthy, and that is aligned with science and the research and the best practices of leadership. So my call to action is if you are curious about that, well, that's the first step is get curious, find out if your employees are not motivated, if you are seeing retention go down, if you see engagement Is suffering and people are quitting or Quiet, quiet quitting, you need to get curious. If you're a leader or manager, you need to get curious to find out what is going on, because most likely, everything points back to how our leaders leading, and if they are not taking care of their people, there's going to be more suffering down in in the lower ranks and on the front lines. So we need to address that through what I call the five radical principles of love in action, which is the framework for my book. So what shift must happen in your organization for you to create more actionable, practical love and care in your current situation, so that you can maximize human potential and get people to show up with their best selves, because that is going to be very good for your business. That's all I got today, and I will see you next time you.