They are working with compassion and love instead of fear every day. They are okay with themselves and others. They show approval instead of disapproval. These are just a few examples of clients who’ve used heart-directed leadership to maximize personal productivity, company success, and job satisfaction.

Steve has a custom mailing and design business that serves high-end financial service companies. His clients were frequently demanding and critical. They irritated him to no end. So, Steve adopted a new approach: he stayed away from the office each day until he could feel love for all his clients. Some days, he arrived well after noon. But since he was taking care of himself, when he did connect with clients, he came from a place of love

His attitude soon began to shift to one of love and service and, within three weeks, his customers became more and more approving of the work. They brought him new business, and asked how they could help him grow.

His profits doubled each year and held until the 2008 market crashed. Best of all, his customers returned in force and for more than five years, his profits have been close to pre-2008 levels.

More importantly, Steve let go of micromanaging, switched to managing with trust and love. He told his staff that he respected their judgment so to come only with their best solutions because they had the answers. Within a couple of weeks, his employees made decisions without asking for his help with everyday problems. The operation runs more smoothly, and Steve says he only works about 4 hours a week.

My friend Jennifer headed marketing and member engagement for a major insurance company. She was excelling at her work until the company hired the former head of a large loyalty program as the head of consumer and data analysis. He had his own ideas about her team’s strategy and continually tried to impose his former employer’s view. In general, he just thought he could do a better job.

I advised Jennifer to find ways to cooperate and silently send him love, and see what she could learn from the experience.

She soon suggested that their teams meet to see how they could complement each other. The result: They co-creating a strategy that brought out the best talents of each team. Their collaboration provided a shared objective and vision instead of their taking adversarial positions. Their primary metric (expansion of the activation of healthy food cards) increased more than 160% in the first year.

While he had originally shared with her boss that she was defensive, in the annual talent review meeting, her new colleague said Jennifer was the personification of an excellent collaborator and had many new ideas.