In 1984 Stephen Lewis was appointed Canadian Ambassador to the United Nations From 1995 to 1999 he served as Deputy Director of UNICEF. From 2001 until 2006 he worked as United Nations Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa. In his role as Special Envoy, he drew attention to the HIV/AIDS crisis and worked to help convince leaders and the public that they too bear responsibility and must respond to this crisis. Lewish has been widely praised for his effectiveness in this role.

I attended the presentation with my mother, who is a member of a group that works in support of the Stephen Lewis’ s “Grandmother for Grandmother,” a foundation he set up around the world to enable grandmothers to help grandmothers. My sister Jay and my daughter Katie also attended the event. We all thought it was going to an entertainment event with a great speaker who was going to talk about something he was passionate about.

Stephen is a wonderful speaker with a great sense of humor – astonishing in a way, given the human destruction he has witnessed. The content of his stories is both tragic and disturbing. I was quickly moved and almost embarrassed that I expected entertainment. All of us were quickly stunned into silence.

Below is a quote from my book that I summarizes my feelings as I listened to Stephen Lewis speak:

If a world where Love Leadership is the ideal, you’ d still have conflict. But in a loving world, when the standard rule is to solve this conflict without harming the dignity and humanity of the human being with whom you’ re having this conflict, you have to find a peaceful way to solve the dispute without harming, hurting or belittling anyone. It makes so much sense to me that I’ m often astonished that the choice to lead with love isn’ t made more often.

Stephen Lewis talked about the incredible spread of AIDs in Africa and in a number of other counties. He went on to tell us highly disturbing stories about harm done to woman and children and the total disregard of many men in authority to protect or respect the dignity and humanity of woman. After hearing the story I must admit I was disturbed that I shared the same gender with men who did such horrible things. I was also disturbing that as human beings any of us could allow this to go on.

At this point in the presentation my thoughts went from judgment to wondering how could the human system could break down so badly that men would do this to fellow humans, and especially to women, who we are expected to protect.

Throughout the presentation I flashed on the movie “Blood Diamonds,” where they portrayed a thoughtful African boy who was taken from his loving family and over time was transformed into a teenage killing machine. I could see how over a period of time it is possible to create this horrible behavior and wanton disregard of human life.

It has been three or four weeks since I heard Stephen Lewis, and his presentations still resound in my head. Thanks to him, I am now even more inspired to work to entrench Love Leadership into the world. There are two actions in my book that I hope inspire readers to in initiate: one is – encourage people to increase their capacity to love. The second is to increase our collective responsibility to respect and protect the dignity of all humans.

Sadly, in some parts of Africa what has increased is the capacity to hate and an increase in lack of respect for the dignity of humanity. It seems like there is no value placed on the individual’ s life.

I do not totally understand the whole issue in Africa, and I am sure it is a complex one with no immediate, easy solutions. Nonetheless, I have come to two conclusions. I believe it is imperative that we work to change the belief that life has no value. I also believe that we need to create and support a moral imperative that encourages respect and protection of the dignity and humanity of all. Until then, everyone should lose sleep over this issue, not just Stephen Lewis.

The book launch was one of the greatest thrills of my life. Family, friends and clients humbled me by their support and love. Two great friends of mine, Darrell and Roy, provided a wonderful musical backdrop to the reading.

Before the launch, I had an opportunity to talk to two groups, as well as to several individuals about the book. These pre-launch talks were fascinating and revealing experiences.

The first was a meeting with one of my favorite clients, who happens to be a great leader. While I was meeting with him, I passed him an invitation to my book launch. On the invitation was the title of my book, “Love Leadership.” He was excited until he read the title. Then there was this pregnant pause. He was clearly embarrassed and did not want to even look at me. I could see how uncomfortable he felt. My sense was he was uncomfortable with the word love in the title and that I was somehow surprising him. He may have even thought I was “coming out of the closet” with some sexual secret or religious belief. So I looked him in the eye and said, “This book is not about sex and it is not about religion.” He looked relieved, but puzzled. What then could it be about?

In order to clarify, I asked him if he had ever worked with a group of people or team he liked. “Of course, ” he responded. Next I asked him if he had ever worked with a group or team that he felt something for, something stronger than merely “liking” them – did he ever truly care about some of them? Again he responded in the affirmative. I then asked if he had ever worked with a group or team for whom he felt something stronger than “care.” “Yes.” I then asked him, “Okay, what was that?” He paused for a moment and then he got it. “I felt love, ” he said. Voila! Another Love Leader revealed!

I had another interesting experience along the same lines. I had sent an e-mail announcement out to several clients and directed them to my website to check the book out. I got e-mail back from several of them saying that they couldn’t get onto my site. After a little exploration into why, we found out that it was only when they tried to access loveleadership.com from work that they were not able to connect. It’s really amazing, but even technology is uncomfortable with that word. Anything that led with the word “love” wound up filtered out as spam – a telling symptom for the business world, and the very reason I wrote this book.

I also wrote this book to help leaders understand that it’s more than okay to allow love into your leadership and hopefully into your organization. These two telling examples continue to encourage me to keep on trying. I hope after you read my book you will feel the same way.

After you read Love Leadership: What the World Needs Now, please share your comments or questions about the book. I would very much like to hear what you have to say. I would also welcome your own Love Leadership stories, which I hope you will allow me to share with others who read this blog. They might also be included in my next book, which has the working title Love Leadership in Action: How Love is Changing Business and the World.

- Gregg Cochlan