“how do I love thee? let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death”. – Elizabeth Barrett Browning as cited in Light from Many Lamps
Elizabeth Barret Browning’s life was marked by illness and tragedy. Her father and brothers disowned her after she followed her heart and got married. I can only imagine the loneliness she felt being cut off from her own family. She struggled immensely with her health and faced new challenges in moving to a new country Despite all the challenges she faced she wrote some of the most beautiful and poignant poetry that transcends time. The leadership lesson learned from Elizabeth Barret Browning’s life is that adversity and hardship are opportunities for growth that teach us perseverance.
Leadership begins with loving one another. Love involves intimacy, compassion, and commitment. Intimacy is about the connection with one another. In the organizational realm loving each other looks differently than passionate love. Love looks like helping people develop their purpose, and achieve their personal goals. Showing our employees that we care about their needs and treating them with dignity and respect is loving them.
The poem Oh how I love thee is one of my favorites. Marriage is such a beautifully intimate weave of two souls and lives into one. Never have I ever been forced to be so vulnerable, so exposed with another person. In these raw moments of vulnerability, there is deep unconditional love and acceptance like no other. You can see the endless love she has for her husband in the cadence of the words she chooses. I can only try to love my spouse in this way
References:
Watson, L. E. (1988). Light from many lamps. New York: Simon & Schuster.