"Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anaemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love." — Martin Luther King Jr.
In the world of impact, we've become adept at speaking the language of metrics, efficiency, and theories of change. We've developed sophisticated frameworks for measuring social return, complex methodologies for assessing impact, and nuanced approaches to systems analysis. Yet, in our quest for legitimacy and rigour, we've often relegated one of the most powerful forces for transformation to the realm of the ephemeral, viewing it as too personal, too emotional, to merit serious consideration in our strategic discussions.
I'm speaking, of course, about love.
Not just love for those closest to us, but love as a practice—a deliberate way of being and doing that transforms both the lover and the beloved. Love as deep attention, as commitment to others' flourishing, as willingness to transform oneself in service of relationship.
Love in this sense is a functional requirement for creating systemic change—not an optional value but an essential operating principle without which our most sophisticated interventions will falter.
As I've recently reflected, the work of creating a more just, equitable and loving world too easily becomes a righteous battle that disconnects us from the very values we claim to champion. We fight systems of oppression with such intensity that we become oppressive to ourselves and those around us. As I've said elsewhere, "the temple becomes a garrison—and that's simply no way to live".
But what if love were not merely the goal of our work but its method? What if it were not only the world we seek to create but the means by which we create it?
Deepening Intimacy: Love as Practice
"Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it." — Rumi
The ancient Greeks distinguished between multiple forms of love: eros (romantic), philia (friendship), storge (familial), philautia (self-love), and agape (unconditional love for humanity). It's this last form—agape—that has particular relevance for the work of social change, though all forms play their part in the ecosystem of transformation.
Agape isn't passive or sentimental. As Martin Luther King Jr. observed, it is "understanding, redemptive goodwill towards all men." It's active, demanding, and sometimes uncomfortable. It requires us to see and dignify the humanity in those we might otherwise reduce to categories—stakeholders, funders, partners, opponents—and to remain in relationship even when it would be easier to withdraw.
The management theorist Margaret Wheatley articulates this demanding quality of love in organisational contexts: "I define love thus: the willingness to be disturbed." To be willing to have one's neat categories and comfortable certainties disrupted by relationship—this is love as practice rather than sentiment.
This willingness to be disturbed—to stay present to complexity rather than retreating to simplistic narratives—is precisely what our work demands if it is to create lasting change rather than merely temporary relief.
The Strategic Case for Love
"Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within." — James Baldwin
If this all sounds too philosophical, consider the practical implications of embedding love as a strategic principle:
Enhanced capacity for learning and adaptation: Love as deep attention allows us to see reality more clearly, without the distortions of projection or defensive blindness. When we truly attend to what is happening rather than what we wish to see, we become capable of adapting to changing conditions with greater agility. Increased resilience through relationship: In my article on martyrdom, I highlighted how isolating the work of impact can become, often leading to burnout for even the most committed change-makers. Love as practice builds relationships characterised by mutual care and reciprocity, creating resilience that extends far beyond what any individual could maintain alone.
More sustainable change strategies: Love accepts the reality of complex systems rather than attempting to control or dominate them. It works with emergence rather than forcing predetermined outcomes, resulting in more sustainable and contextually appropriate solutions. When we design systems from a place of love, they become more adaptive and resilient by nature.
Greater legitimacy through authentic connection: As I've explored in previous writings, treating stakeholders as participants rather than recipients creates more effective solutions. Love as practice generates the trust and legitimacy essential for meaningful participation. This addresses the funding misalignment that plagues so many impact ventures—when genuine relationship replaces transaction, resources tend to flow more naturally. Alignment between means and ends: If our ultimate goal is a more loving world, we cannot get there through neutral or unloving means. Love as practice ensures coherence between our methods and our aims, avoiding the painful contradictions that arise when we sacrifice our values in pursuit of our vision.
Enhanced capacity for learning and adaptation: Love as deep attention allows us to see reality more clearly, without the distortions of projection or defensive blindness. When we truly attend to what is happening rather than what we wish to see, we become capable of adapting to changing conditions with greater agility.
Increased resilience through relationship: In my article on martyrdom, I highlighted how isolating the work of impact can become, often leading to burnout for even the most committed change-makers. Love as practice builds relationships characterised by mutual care and reciprocity, creating resilience that extends far beyond what any individual could maintain alone.
More sustainable change strategies: Love accepts the reality of complex systems rather than attempting to control or dominate them. It works with emergence rather than forcing predetermined outcomes, resulting in more sustainable and contextually appropriate solutions. When we design systems from a place of love, they become more adaptive and resilient by nature.
Greater legitimacy through authentic connection: As I've explored in previous writings, treating stakeholders as participants rather than recipients creates more effective solutions. Love as practice generates the trust and legitimacy essential for meaningful participation. This addresses the funding misalignment that plagues so many impact ventures—when genuine relationship replaces transaction, resources tend to flow more naturally.
Alignment between means and ends: If our ultimate goal is a more loving world, we cannot get there through neutral or unloving means. Love as practice ensures coherence between our methods and our aims, avoiding the painful contradictions that arise when we sacrifice our values in pursuit of our vision.
The evidence for these impacts goes beyond anecdote. Research in positive organisational scholarship suggests that organisations characterised by compassionate practices demonstrate greater innovation, adaptation, and staff retention. In international development, participatory approaches grounded in deep relationship consistently show better outcomes than top-down interventions, even when the latter have far greater resources.
Building Infrastructures of Love
"We have to consciously study how to be tender with each other until it becomes a habit." — Audre Lorde
How might we move love from abstraction to practical reality in our organisations and movements? While love is fundamentally relational rather than structural, we can create conditions that foster its expression. The challenge lies in designing systems and infrastructures that support and amplify love-based approaches rather than undermining them:
1. Practices of Attention
"Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity." — Simone Weil
In our distracted world, attention has become an increasingly scarce resource. Yet without it, our experience of love remains fleeting at best.
This begins with creating organisational cultures that value presence. Every time I facilitate - be it for an hour, or several days - I insist that all participants "go (lap)topless", and thus be fully engaged in the room, in a device-free environment, rather than being distracted by whatever is happening outside of the room. Other practitioners, facilitators and impact leaders I know have developed rituals that create space for real listening—for example, opening meetings with a round where each participant speaks briefly without interruption.
I first encountered this practice while living in Boulder, Colorado, when my good friend and business partner
would open every meeting with a mere 60 seconds of silence, bringing everyone's attention fully present.
At a deeper level, attention requires slowing down enough to notice what is actually happening rather than rushing to interpret through existing frameworks. This is why design thinking methodologies emphasise observation as a distinct phase, separate from ideation or problem-solving. We must see clearly before we can love effectively.
2. Practices of Vulnerability
In my recent reflection on making sacrifice sacred again, I explored how boundaries and ritual can transform depletion into meaningful contribution. Love similarly requires boundaries, not as barriers but as containers that make depth possible.
The most powerful practices I've observed involve creating safe containers for appropriate vulnerability. Fuckup Nights regularly hosts- you guessed it - "fuck up nights"—structured sessions where entrepreneurs can share missteps and learnings without shame. By normalising imperfection, they've created conditions where deeper connection becomes possible.
This extends to relationships with stakeholders as well. When organisations are willing to acknowledge limitations and mistakes rather than projecting an image of perfect competence, they create space for more authentic partnership.
This shift from heroic to human is critical for sustainable impact. When we let go of the need to appear flawless and invulnerable, we create space for genuine connection and collective wisdom to emerge. The heroic leader carries the burden alone; the human leader invites others into shared responsibility.
3. Practices of Commitment
"Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit." — Peter Ustinov
Love is not merely a feeling but a decision—a commitment to remain in relationship even when it becomes uncomfortable. This quality of commitment is particularly essential in complex change work, which inevitably involves periods of frustration and apparent failure.
At Armillaria , we're developing explicit "partnership agreements" that outline not only deliverables and timelines but the relational commitments that sustain the work through difficulty. These include agreements about how conflict will be addressed, how feedback will be given and received, and what processes will be used when the partnership encounters obstacles.
At the organisational level, this might include commitment to places and communities over the long term, rather than the project-based engagement that characterises much impact work. Many indigenous cultures embrace the principle of seven-generation thinking—making decisions with consideration for those living seven generations into the future. This time horizon stands in stark contrast to our quarterly reporting cycles and annual strategic plans, challenging us to demonstrate commitment measured not in months or years, but in decades and centuries.
4. Practices of Transformation
Love transforms both the lover and the beloved. In organisational terms, this means creating cultures where everyone involved—staff, partners, stakeholders—is understood to be in a process of growth and change rather than fixed in static identities.
The most effective impact leaders I know maintain what
calls a "growth mindset"—a belief that capabilities can be developed through dedication and hard work. They extend this same perspective to those they serve, seeing potential rather than merely problems.
More radically, they remain open to being changed by those they seek to serve. As civil rights leader Lilla Watson famously said: "If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together."
The Discipline of Love
"We have to walk to the edge of the light, and then a few steps into the darkness, to know that the light will follow." — Mother Teresa
In our culture's romantic mythology, love is something that arises spontaneously and without effort. But the love I'm describing is a discipline rather than a glorious surprise—a way of being that we cultivate through consistent practice.
As I've written before about the distinction between knowing and being, there's a profound difference between intellectual understanding and embodied practice. Just because we know the importance of love doesn't mean we're being loving in our actions.
The path from knowledge to embodiment requires more than intellectual understanding. It demands practical wisdom, supportive structures, and consistent practice. It requires moving from abstract concepts to lived experience.
Perhaps the most essential practice is forgiveness—not as a way of excusing harm but as a commitment to continue relationships despite inevitable imperfections. We will fall short of our ideals. We will sometimes prioritise efficiency over connection, certainty over curiosity, control over trust. The question is not whether we will fail, but how and when we will return to love even after we do.
"Come, come, whoever you are. Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving. It doesn't matter. Ours is not a caravan of despair. Come, even if you have broken your vows a thousand times. Come, yet again, come, come." — Rumi
The most transformative leaders I know are not those who love perfectly but those who return to love consistently, especially after moments of forgetting.
From Transaction to Relationship
"A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives." — Jackie Robinson
At its core, love transforms transactions into relationships. It shifts our focus from what we can gain or achieve to how we can remain in creative connection with others and the world.
In my experience, all lasting change emerges from this quality of relationship. What if our impact metrics included not just outcomes achieved but relationships deepened? What if our theories of change accounted not just for causal mechanisms but for the quality of connection among all participants?
Impact work can be brutal and dehumanising—both for those doing the work and those it aims to serve. I've burned out twice trying to fight systems of oppression with the tools of oppression. I've watched colleagues collapse under the weight of noble intentions unsupported by sustainable practices. I've seen organisations achieve impressive short-term outcomes at the cost of long-term relationships and trust.
There is another way. Not easier, certainly not more efficient by conventional metrics, but ultimately more effective and sustainable. It begins with the recognition that love is not incidental to the work of change but essential to it—not merely a sentiment but a strategic imperative.
"In a real sense all life is inter-related. All persons are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly." — Martin Luther King Jr.
Love isn't a tool at all but a way of being that transforms both the worker and the work. It may be our only hope of creating change that truly lasts.
I'm curious: Where have you seen love effectively embedded in the practice of impact work? What barriers have you encountered in bringing this dimension more fully into your own work? How might we better integrate love as a strategic principle without reducing it to yet another instrumental technique?