
06 Feb Leading and Managing with Power and Love
We keep asking: Has South Africa—and maybe the world—become fixated on leadership at the expense of good old-fashioned management?
This isn’t just a passing thought. It keeps popping up in our conversations, in our strategy work, in the companies we support. So today, we’re inviting you to wrestle with it a little differently.
First Thought Exercise
💭 Quick—don’t overthink it.
Fill in the gap with either Power or Love: Leadership = ( ) and Management = ( )
Drop your first instinct in the comments. No, really—before reading further, just type it in. (And if you actually do comment, we really, really appreciate it. Helps us prove this isn’t just an echo chamber over here.)
Power and Love: Who Owns What?
Our first instinct was Leadership = Love and Management = Power. Why? Because leaders “show the way,” inspire, empower, motivate. Meanwhile, managers control, structure, schedule, process, report. That sounds like power, right?
Until you look again.
What is leadership if not power?
- Leaders stand up, stand out, take charge.
- Leadership is empowerment, motivation, “going before”, command.
- Leaders make the calls—they decide which hills are worth dying on.
- Leadership is about having agency and using it.
And what is management if not love?
- Good managers hold things together—the teams, the priorities, the messy moving parts.
- Management is the patient, persistent, practical glue that keeps an organisation running.
- Managers don’t just lead—they also link, connect, translate, share.
- A great manager helps with the work, removes obstacles, keeps the rhythm steady.
Love, real love, isn’t fluffy—it’s tough and steady. It’s commitment, responsibility, care. And isn’t that exactly what great managers do?
The Balancing Act: Where Power Overwhelms Love, or Love Undermines Power
South African organisations wrestle with this tension every day.
- Where power dominates, we see fear-based workplaces, rigid hierarchies, unapproachable executives.
- Where love dominates, we see indecisiveness, blurred accountability, and an inability to make tough calls.
The real challenge? You don’t get to choose one or the other.
As Adam Kahane puts it in Power and Love: A Theory and Practice of Social Change:
“We fall down when, intentionally or unintentionally, we make the elementary and common error of treating the relationship between power and love, which is a dilemma, as if it were a choice.”
It’s a tension to manage, not a problem to solve. And in organisations—especially in South Africa’s complex social, political, and economic landscape—that tension is always present.
Join the Conversation: Power and Love in Organisations
26 February | Free Online OD Café
In the month of love, let’s have the tough conversations.
- How do leaders balance the drive for results (power) with the need for collaboration (love)?
- How do power and love shape strategy, structure, and team dynamics in SA organisations?
- How do we talk about this in a way that even the toughest executives won’t roll their eyes?
This isn’t about soft and fuzzy feelings. It’s about what actually works in making organisations stronger, more resilient, and more effective.
And because we love a good giveaway, one lucky delegate will win a copy of Adam Kahane’s Power and Love: A Theory and Practice of Social Change.
📌 Register here and join us! We’d love to hear your voice in the room.

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