THE EIGHT ESSENTIALS OF AGAPE’ LOVE

Patience - Showing self-control and impulse control

Kindness - Giving attention, appreciation, and encouragement

Honesty - Being free from deception

Respect - Treating others as if they were important

Selflessness- Meeting the legitimate needs of others

Forgiveness - Letting go of resentment

Humility - Being authentic without pretense or arrogance

Commitment - Sticking to your choices EIGHT ESSENTIALS Expanded definitions

Patience To show self-control or impulse control. A habit must be developed by responding from our principles rather than urges in order for us to be effective leaders. In short, we must get our impulses under control. We must get the head (values) in charge of the heart (emotions). Patience and self-control are about being consistent and predictable in mood and actions. Are you a safe person? Easy to be with? Approachable? Can you handle contrary opinion? Criticism? Acting out on anger and passion and violating the rights of others is inappropriate and damages relationships. Patience and self-control are choices.

Kindness To give attention, appreciation, and encouragement to people; to display common courtesy to others. Kindness requires us to reach out to others, to extend ourselves, even to people we may not be particularly fond of. This includes extending ourselves for others by appreciating them, encouraging them, being courteous, listening well, and giving credit and praise for efforts made. People need to be appreciated and listened to. Common courtesy is doing the little things like saying please; thank you; I’m sorry, I was wrong. Little things like being the first one to say, “Good morning,” in the hallway. Kindness is the WD-40 of human relationships.

Honesty To be free from deception. Trust, which is built by honesty and integrity, is the glue that holds relationships together. Honesty with people is also the tough side of love and brings balance to love. Honesty is about clarifying expectations for people, holding people accountable, being willing to give the bad news as well as the good news, giving people feedback, being consistent, predictable, and fair. In short, it’s behavior that is free from deception and dedicated to the truth at all costs. Another form of honesty is being free from duplicitous behavior like gossip, backstabbing, and pairing. Assertive people are willing to tell the truth whether that truth is good news or bad news; their behavior is open and direct yet respectful.

Respect To treat people like they are important. Everyone is capable of respecting others. Respect isn’t earned, it is given. Respectful people choose to treat all people like important people, even when they behave poorly or “don’t deserve it.” Everyone is important. Every person and every job is worth as much as any other person and any other job. Leaders give respect by delegating responsibilities to others so they can grow and develop. In doing so, they demonstrate trust and build trust. By giving respect and trust, they get it back. Respectful people show the same respect to all people regardless of the status or position of those people. EIGHT ESSENTIALS Expanded definitions

Selflessness To meet the needs of others. The will to serve and sacrifice for others, the willingness to set aside our wants and needs in seeking the greatest good for others - this is what it means to be selfless. The Law of the Harvest states that people reap what they sow; in other words, you serve me, I’ll serve you. Selfless people sow service and sacrifice; they extend themselves for others and seek their greatest good. In return they reap a harvest of influence. Selfless people are servants, not slaves, because they meet the legitimate needs of others, not their wants.

Forgiveness To let go of resentment. Forgiving people develop the skill (habit) of accepting limitations in others and the capacity to tolerate imperfection. They develop the skill of letting go of the resentment that often lingers when people let them down. Forgiveness involves going to people and communicating assertively how what they have done has affected you, dealing with it, and then letting go of any lingering resentment. It’s hard to do when pride and feelings have been hurt. But know that resentment destroys the human personality. As Gandhi said, “The weak can never forgive.” Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. A final thought: forgiving people are just as willing to forgive others as they are to forgive themselves. They are able to separate the behavior from the person, the sin from the sinner. And finally, one expert says that forgiveness is the trait most strongly linked to happiness. “It’s the queen of all virtues, and probably the hardest to come by,” he states.

Humility To display an absence of pride, arrogance, or pretense; behaving authentically. Humble people are able to keep things in perspective. They are willing to be open and vulnerable because they have their egos under control and do not operate from delusions of grandeur, believing they are indispensable. They do not take themselves too seriously and are able to laugh at themselves and the world. They are quick to give credit to others and do not seek out credit and adulation for themselves; they are secure in who and what they are. They know they do not have all the answers, are okay with that, and are wide open to contrary opinion. And, as a wise mystic once said, “If we could see ourselves for what we really are, we would be very humble indeed.”

Commitment To stick to your choice. Committing to servant leadership requires a passion for doing what you say you are going to do, following through on promises, and finishing what is started. It’s a passion for doing the right thing and being the best you can be. It requires a passion for helping others along their journey to be the best they can be ...and committing to be the best you can be. Commitment is also about being loyal to people on the team and being there for others when they fail or need your help. It does not mean blind loyalty - doing the right thing always comes first. Commitment is having the moral courage to do the right thing even if it is unpopular or comes with personal risk. Moral courage is the commitment to put aside anything that gets in the way of doing the right thing.

James C. Hunter’s The World’s Most Powerful Leadership Principle: How To Become a Servant Leader