Love is the answer. Love as a leadership operating system - a billion dollar corporate advantage.
"You live that you may learn to love, you love that you may learn to live. No other lesson is required of you." - The Book of Mirdad, by Mikha'il Na'ima, Lebanese philosopher.
It’s not the kind of quote you expect to find at the start of a discussion about leadership development and organisational performance. Yet if you strip away the poetry, it contains the most commercially relevant leadership insight I know: when people feel valued, trusted, and fully engaged, they deliver at a higher level. When they don’t, they don’t.
That's also backed by Accenture research: When people feel highly connected to each other, their leaders and their work, companies stand to gain a 7.4% revenue growth boost per year.
The financial press rarely frames it this way, but every C-Suite member of billion-dollar businesses that I’ve worked with has felt the gap between what their teams should be delivering and what they are delivering. Often, it’s not a strategy problem, it’s actually a climate problem - the way leaders allocate attention, set expectations, and show regard for the people delivering the work.
I’ve been exploring this through the lens of my friend and colleague, Dr Fiona Beddoes-Jones. She has one of the world’s very few PhDs in authenticity and Authentic Leadership — not in the pop-psychology sense, but in the rigorously defined, peer-reviewed discipline.
Her work bridges the gap that so many executives wrestle with: the difference between who you are at your most authentic, and who you feel you need to be when leading in high-stakes corporate environments.
When Fiona handed me her book, Love is the Answer, I was expecting it to be an interesting take on leadership psychology. What I found was a structured, measurable model for organisational climate and a compelling argument that most companies could unlock significant profit and retention gains if they paid more attention to a concept that makes some leaders seriously uncomfortable.
Love.
Not love as a sentiment. Not love as a weakness. Love as a disciplined operating system for how people are led. The kind that balances accountability with regard, operational rigour with human connection, and crucially delivers results without burning through trust, talent, and reputation.
Fiona's Corporate Love Model maps leadership culture on two axes that together define the “climate” of your organisation.
Axis one: Operational drive vs relational depth. At one end, you have a masculine orientation: goal-driven, task-focused, decisive, intolerant of ambiguity. On the other, a feminine orientation: people-focused, collaborative, inclusive, patient with complexity. Importantly, these labels have nothing to do with gender — they’re shorthand for behavioural styles. Many men lead with a feminine orientation, many women with a masculine one.
Axis two: Performance-contingent regard vs person-contingent regard. This measures how leaders treat people in relation to their performance. Conditional regard means that respect and attention rise or fall with results. Unconditional regard means the individual is treated with respect and care regardless of this quarter’s numbers — mistakes are seen as learning opportunities, trust remains constant.
Put these axes together and you get four distinct leadership climates, each with predictable strengths and vulnerabilities:
Paternalistic (masculine + conditional) — operationally tight, fast-moving, high-clarity; risks burnout and transactional relationships.
Maternalistic (feminine + conditional) — relationally rich, supportive, with clear standards; risks slower short-term results.
Philosophical (masculine + unconditional) — mission-anchored, high-trust; risks tolerating under-performance.
Universal (feminine + unconditional) — psychologically safe, creative, high belonging; risks delivery drift and avoidance of tough calls.
The most effective leaders don’t park themselves in one quadrant. They blend intentionally depending on context. In her research, Dr Beddoes-Jones found that sustained high performance comes from climates that combine the rigour of the masculine with the empathy of the feminine, and the clarity of conditional regard with the support of unconditional regard.
To make this more tangible, she uses a climate analogy:
Temperature is task intensity - hot climates drive on goals; cool climates invest in relationships.
Rainfall is regard - seasonal rain means care is conditional; year-round rain means care is constant.
Each “climate zone” grows different crops:
Paternalistic (hot + seasonal) grows fast-yield crops like turnarounds and scale plays, but risks soil depletion — burnout, disengagement.
Maternalistic (cool + seasonal) grows resilient mixed farms - steady output, strong relationships, slower to harvest.
Philosophical (hot + year-round) grows mission forests - deep roots and loyalty, but can shelter invasive species if no pruning happens.
Universal (cool + year-round) grows innovation gardens - rich soil for ideas, but without trellises and paths, vines tangle and execution slips.
For CEOs, the implication is blunt; your business already has a climate. If you haven’t shaped it deliberately, it has formed by accident and likely as an unexamined extension of your own leadership style. In high-growth, high-complexity environments, accidental climates are expensive.
The four leadership climates Fiona describes are not theoretical. They show up in billion-dollar companies every day, and their impact on performance is visible in the data if you know where to look.
Paternalistic — Masculine + Conditional regard
Definition: Operationally tight, goal-driven, high-clarity. Performance is rewarded, under-performance is sanctioned.
For me an obvious corporate example would be Amazon. Long characterised by high expectations, relentless metrics, and performance-based advancement. A 2015 New York Times investigation described it as “purposeful Darwinism” in which under-performers are systematically exited to maintain pace and quality. While demanding, this model has delivered market-leading logistics and e-commerce growth.
It also reminds me of Olympic sprint programmes — every session is timed, every result ranked, selection is conditional on hitting the mark. In turnaround or scale-up phases where clarity and speed are paramount, paternalistic climates can stabilise chaos. The risk is erosion of trust and discretionary effort if people feel like expendable assets. Safeguard by pairing this with visible investment in long-term talent.
Maternalistic — Feminine + Conditional regard
Relationally rich, supportive, but with clear boundaries and behavioural expectations. A corporate example might be The Mayo Clinic, a $15 billion healthcare system, has consistently ranked in the top tier for both patient outcomes and employee satisfaction. Its team-based care model supports clinicians with extensive collaboration, but maintains strict performance protocols to protect patient safety.
I'm also reminded of my husband's rugby practices where team cohesion is prioritised but match fitness and discipline remain non-negotiable. In sectors where service quality and safety are paramount, maternalistic climates retain talent and protect brand reputation. The risk is slower short-term metrics; counterbalance by using targeted performance sprints in critical periods.
Philosophical — Masculine + Unconditional regard
Mission-anchored, high-trust, minimal sanctions, a corporate example would be Wikipedia, which operates as a top-10 global website with a largely volunteer workforce, united by mission rather than contracts. Source: Wikimedia Foundation Annual Report, 2023. Content contribution is self-directed, and sanctions are rare outside of blatant misconduct. The trust model sustains scale, but can struggle with uneven contribution.
Non-profit sports federations relying on volunteer coaches and officials - high mission alignment, variable performance. Philosophical climates excel in purpose-driven environments where intrinsic motivation is the fuel. The risk is tolerating persistent under-performance; address by adding lightweight accountability systems that don’t undermine mission commitment.
Universal — Feminine + Unconditional regard
Psychologically safe, high-creativity, strong belonging. Performance expectations are implicit rather than enforced. Pixar is famous for its “Braintrust” meetings where candour and psychological safety drive innovation. Source: Ed Catmull, Creativity, Inc., 2014】. Directors receive unfiltered feedback without fear of reprisal, enabling creative risk-taking. The culture leans unconditionally in interpersonal regard, while relying on intrinsic motivation for delivery.
I recently watched the F1 movie with Brad Pitt. The high-performing R&D labs in Formula 1, where engineers share early, imperfect ideas without fear to unlock breakthrough design would be another example of this. Universal climates are fertile ground for innovation and complex problem-solving. The risk is drift on execution; counterbalance with milestone tracking and explicit delivery standards.
Blending quadrants.
High-performing billion-dollar organisations rarely live in just one quadrant of the leadership climate map. Instead, they sequence climates deliberately, moving between them as market conditions, strategic priorities, and organisational lifecycle stages demand.
When this is done on purpose, it feels seamless - teams adjust instinctively because leaders signal the shift and provide the structures to support it. When it happens by accident, the shifts feel erratic, erodes trust, and waste energy.
Just as an elite sports team trains differently in pre-season, mid-season and championship weeks, large organisations can shift climates across a fiscal year:
Planning season. A Paternalistic phase with hot operational drivers and conditional accountability. Targets are clarified, resources allocated and performance standards reinforced. The organisation is setting the scoreboard for the year ahead. Example: Apple’s product launch cycles start with intense, tightly managed planning sprints to lock specs, supply chains, and launch windows.
Execution season. Blending towards Maternalistic or Universal, depending on the work. In complex service delivery, the maternalistic mix maintains standards without burning people out. In creative or innovation cycles, Universal climates encourage risk-taking and cross-pollination of ideas. Example: Pixar shifts from intense pre-production scheduling to a collaborative, iterative production environment during the making of a film.
Review season. Pull in Philosophical elements. Step back from short-term numbers to assess mission alignment, long-term positioning, and cultural health. This is where strategy gets its recalibration without panic. Example: Unilever’s annual sustainability and brand impact reviews operate with a philosophical lens, assessing against mission commitments alongside financial returns.
Final push. Re-engage Paternalistic drivers for the end-of-year push or a critical delivery deadline. Leaders need to make this shift visible so teams know urgency has returned — without undermining the trust bank built during the year.
Some billion-dollar businesses run different climates in parallel:
Operations may be Paternalistic to ensure consistency and control.
R&D may be Universal to spark innovation.
Brand and marketing may lean towards Maternalistic to nurture partnerships.
Mission-driven units may lean towards Philosophical to maintain values alignment.
This is similar to a Formula 1 team’s set-up: the race team runs a Paternalistic pit strategy, the design lab runs Universal experimentation, and the driver development programme runs Maternalistic mentoring - all in the same season and in parallel.
Why CEOs get stuck
Dr Fiona Beddoes-Jones’s research shows most leaders have a natural home quadrant. Under stress, they default there and often drag the organisation with them. That’s fine when the home quadrant matches the context (e.g. Paternalistic in a turnaround), but catastrophic when it doesn’t (e.g. Paternalistic in an innovation phase).
CEOs get stuck because of:
Cognitive load. Switching climates takes deliberate attention, and the CEO role is already saturated.
Cultural drag. The senior team mirrors the CEO’s style, creating an echo chamber that resists change.
Misread signals. Success in one quadrant is misattributed to style rather than timing, leading to over-use.
The leadership challenge is to design your climate shifts on purpose:
Build them into your annual operating rhythm.
Signal shifts with clear narrative, e.g. “Now we’re in planning mode; here’s what changes”.
Train your senior leaders to flex with you, so sub-climates don’t clash with the overarching rhythm.
When organisations get this right, they keep performance sharp without eroding trust, and keep trust high without letting performance drift. That blend; the disciplined use of care and accountability, is the hallmark of leadership range.
A climate map is useful for diagnosis, but a map alone doesn’t change anything. If you want your organisation to operate in the right quadrant, or blend of quadrants, you need to hardwire it into the way you run the business. That means shifting from climate awareness to climate design.
At this point, we stop thinking of this as a “style preference” and start thinking about it as an operating system; the processes, behaviours, rituals, and metrics that make the intended climate the default experience for employees and customers.
Phase 0: Define the climate you want
Most businesses have an “unconscious climate” that formed around the CEO’s default style or the legacy of a previous leadership era. Your first job is to define the climate you want for the next 12–18 months:
Which quadrant (or blend) will best serve your strategic objectives?
What risks come with that choice, and how will you counteract them?
What signals will people see when the climate is shifting?
Without this clarity, all other interventions will be piecemeal and easily overridden by old habits.
Phase 1: Align leadership behaviours
A climate is felt most directly through everyday leader–employee interactions. For each quadrant you want to strengthen, define:
Core behaviours e.g. in a Maternalistic cycle, leaders start one-to-ones by checking capacity before assigning work.
Accountability behaviours e.g. in a Paternalistic cycle, every decision must have a single owner, deadline, and success measures.
At this scale, CEOs can’t personally model every interaction, but you can make behaviours explicit, train to them, and hold your top 50 leaders to account for them.
Phase 2: Hardwire systems
People take climate cues from systems more than speeches. If your speeches are at odds with your desired quadrant, the processes will win.
Performance management - Move from once-a-year appraisals to quarterly expectations and coaching, so conditional regard is applied in real time, not retroactively.
Decision rights - Publish RACI matrices (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) for key processes involving key people. Clarity is essential in all of the quadrants; particularly the Paternalistic and Philosophical cycles.
Work design - In Universal cycles, standardise handoffs and definitions of ‘done’. Care without clarity causes rework; clarity without care erodes trust.
Phase 3: Rituals and language
Rituals embed climate at an emotional level.
Start meetings with context + intent so people understand why their work matters.
Install repair rituals after conflict (e.g. a 24-hour “close the loop” rule) to prevent relational drift.
Audit leadership language - careless or thoughtless language can erode climate faster than any policy.
Phase 4: Safeguards against exploitation
Universal and Philosophical cycles often need guardrails put in place to prevent under-performance from going unaddressed.
Define generous assumptions of intent, but pair with transparent consequences for repeated breaches.
Teach and practise “tough love” (or as some leaders prefer, “clear compassion”) as a skill: evidence + impact + expectation + support + consequence.
Phase 5: Audit and adapt
Quarterly climate reviews keep you from drifting into a default quadrant. Track both sentiment and systems health.
Some Leading indicators: speed of cross-team help, frequency of upward challenge, manager one-to-ones completed on time.
Some Lagging indicators: regretted attrition, absenteeism, customer complaints, rework rates.
Adjust as you would a strategy — with data, intent, and visible leadership commitment.
A climate is not a mood. It is the sum of what leaders do, the systems they operate, the language they use, and the consequences they enforce. When those elements are aligned with your chosen quadrant, the organisation doesn’t just feel and sound different; it performs differently.
Up to this point, we’ve talked about climates, operating systems, leader behaviours, and measurable outcomes. The through-line, if you strip away the labels and frameworks, is simple; organisations perform better when the people in them feel genuinely cared for, trusted, and respected, while being held to high, fair standards.
That, in essence, is what Dr Fiona Beddoes-Jones calls Corporate Love.
For some leaders, the word “love” feels awkward in a commercial context. Dr Beddoes-Jones addresses that head-on. The model isn’t about lowering standards; it’s about embedding consistent regard into the culture so people give you more of their best work, more often, for longer.
Think of love here as a leadership impact multiplier:
High love + high standards = resilient performance.
High love + low standards = drift and mediocrity.
Low love + high standards = compliance without commitment.
Low love + low standards = organisational entropy.
Fiona’s research makes the point sharply:
96% of respondents in her 2016 study said they would work harder for an organisation that genuinely cared about them and their wellbeing.
70% wanted to work in a collaborative, supportive culture (feminine orientation) but preferred their direct line manager to be logical, pragmatic, and task-focused (masculine orientation).
83% believed leaders and managers should be formally taught how to “love” their staff; meaning being considerate, genuinely caring, and being compassionate and supportive in a way that fits the organisational culture.
People want to work in cultures that feel unconditionally supportive and compassionate, and they want to be led by individuals who hold them to account; who are clear, consistent, and fair. The Corporate Love Model explains exactly how to achieve both at the same time.
By now, you’ve seen that the mechanics of this model are the same ones that drive elite performance in business, sport, and the military:
Clarity on objectives and standards.
Consistent regard for the people delivering them.
The ability to flex climate to suit context.
When you name it “love,” you do two things:
Signal intent. You make it explicit that your leadership stance includes human regard as a strategic priority, not an optional extra.
Change the conversation. You give your organisation permission to talk about care, trust, and respect in the same breath as KPIs and EBIT.
The Book of Mirdad quote we opened with is no longer just philosophy:
“You live that you may learn to love, You love that you may learn to live. No other lesson is required of you.”
In a corporate context, this translates into: lead in a way that integrates human regard and operational rigour, and you’ll build an organisation that not only survives market cycles but thrives through them.
Every high-level leadership model should be able to survive hostile questioning. The Corporate Love Model is no exception. If you're interested in seeing how this could be brought into your business, here’s how it stands up to the challenges most likely to come from the C-suite, the board and others:
1. “The word ‘love’ will turn people off.”
Hard-line leaders and certain cultures will dismiss the model before they understand it. That's why you have to lead with outcomes. Frame the model initially as leadership range or evidence-based compassionate leadership, then reveal “love” once the mechanics and ROI are clear. In contexts where “love” is too culturally charged, translate it into a term like “compassionate regard”.
2. “The hormonal framing is too reductive.”
Linking leadership style to testosterone/oestrogen risks being read as gendered determinism. That's why it's important to note that Dr Fiona presents hormones as metaphorical anchors for tendencies, not fixed determinants. We are all a mix of both hormones in different amounts. Reinforce that neuroplasticity, context, and learned behaviours can all influence and a leader’s default style. Focus on observable behaviours such as “clarity over ambiguity” and “relationship over task”, rather than the biology of hormones.
3. “Our company doesn’t fit neatly in one quadrant.”
Large organisations have multiple subcultures; one model won’t fit all. That’s exactly why you map microclimates. Diagnose at the divisional or functional level, as in the F1 example we gave earlier. Then design climate blends to fit each one. The CEO role is to set the overarching climate rhythm and ensure subclimates align with strategic objectives. Global tech firms often run Paternalistic climates in operations, Universal in innovation labs, and Maternalistic in customer success; all under one umbrella.
4. “Unconditional regard will be exploited.”
Some people will game the system if respect is unconditional. This is why guardrails matter. Pair Unconditional Regard with clear performance expectations, transparent consequences for repeat breaches, and a repair-first, removal-second approach to people who try to ‘game the system’. Kindness needs a spine.
5. “Where’s the ROI data?”
Love and Compassionate Regard sound good, but how do we know they drive profit? Use your own internal metrics to track performance.
Service-Profit Chain (Heskett, Sasser & Schlesinger). Show that employee satisfaction correlates with customer loyalty and profitability.
Gallup Q12 — engagement scores correlate with productivity, profitability, retention, and safety.
Dr Beddoes-Jones’s 2016 study; 96% of leaders would work harder for an organisation that cared about them. Tie these findings to your own metrics: regretted attrition, discretionary effort, project delivery timelines.
6. “Leaders can’t be equally good at all styles.”
The perfect blend is unrealistic; people revert to type under pressure, which is why you shouldn't chase perfection. Build climate shifts into your operating rhythm; e.g. Paternalistic in Q1 planning, Universal in innovation sprints and Maternalistic in customer care cycles. Leaders flex by design and process, not by willpower alone.
7. “This won’t translate globally.”
Different cultures interpret care, accountability, and authority differently. This could be solved by creating a cultural translation layer. In high power-distance cultures, frame unconditional regard as “strategic trust” or “long-term talent investment.” In collectivist cultures, emphasise the relational benefits of Maternalistic climates. The mechanics remain; the language adapts.
8. “Most leaders hate using tough love.”
If people avoid it, standards will slip. You have to train it as a competence and use a structured script:
Evidence of the issue.
Impacts on the team/organisation.
Clear expectations.
Support systems offered.
Consequences if unaddressed. Rebrand as ‘clear compassion’ or Radical Candour for leaders who resist the term.
9. “Engagement surveys are too noisy to measure this.”
Surveys are lagging indicators and influenced by outside factors which is why you should pair Engagement Surveys with leading indicators:
Speed of cross-team help.
Frequency of upward challenges.
Voluntary mentoring rates.
Time spent on projects beyond role scope as these track climate health in real time and allow earlier course corrections.
10. “Our top layer won’t change — they got here this way.”
Senior leaders’ entrenched style shapes the culture, and they won’t see the need to change. You have to make the case in their own language: risk mitigation, talent retention, brand equity, and long-term valuation. Frame it as expanding leadership range, not softening up. Use peer benchmarking to show competitor advantage; no CEO wants to be the one losing top talent to a “more human” rival.
Handled well, these objections don’t weaken the Corporate Love Model; they actually strengthen its credibility. The CEOs who lean in after this stage are the ones ready to embed it for real.
By now, the case is clear. The organisations that thrive are not just the ones with the sharpest strategies or the deepest capital reserves. They are the ones whose leaders have ‘range’. The ability to shift climate deliberately; blending operational rigour with human regard in a way that fits the context.
This is what Dr Beddoes-Jones’s Corporate Love Model codifies:
The Map; showing where your leadership climate sits today and where it needs to go.
The Mechanics; the behaviours, systems, rituals, and metrics that create the climate you want.
The Blend; moving between quadrants with intent, rather than drifting into your default under pressure.
When leaders build this range, three things happen:
Retention improves; not because of perks, but because people feel respected, trusted, and fairly treated.
Performance sustains; because high standards and high regard reinforce each other instead of competing.
Resilience strengthens; because the organisation can adapt its climate to market shifts without losing its cohesion.
So why name it “love”?
You could call it compassionate regard, or even human-centred performance. But there’s a reason Dr Beddoes-Jones calls it “love.”
The word forces a shift in conversation. It strips away euphemisms and makes you answer a harder question: Do we actually care about the people delivering our results, or do we just say we do?
Love, in this model, is not just a feeling. It’s a practice:
Love is designing systems that help people succeed.
Love is holding people accountable because their work matters.
Love is giving clear, honest feedback, even when it’s uncomfortable.
Love is building a climate where discretionary effort is offered, not extracted.
It’s exactly what the Book of Mirdad quote points to:
“You live that you may learn to love, You love that you may learn to live. No other lesson is required of you.”
In a business context, this is not idealism — it’s competitive advantage. A culture that integrates human regard with operational excellence will outperform one that treats them as separate.
If you’re leading at the multi-million or billion-dollar level, you already know your climate. The question is whether you chose it; and whether it will serve the business you need to become.
The next steps are simple:
Diagnose; map your climate at the organisational and divisional level.
Decide; choose the quadrant(s) you need for the next 12–18 months.
Design; align behaviours, systems, rituals, and metrics to make that climate real.
Drill; practice shifting climates until it becomes leadership muscle memory.
The Corporate Love Model gives you the structure. Your job as a leader is to supply the intent.
Do that, and you won’t just lead a high-performing organisation. You’ll lead one that people are proud to belong to, stay with longer, and give their best work to every day. And that, in the end, is what makes the numbers and the legacy work.
The link to Connected Leadership
For me this also maps to Connected Leadership almost perfectly. In fact, Fiona’s Corporate Love Model provides the cultural operating system that Connected Leadership needs in order to succeed at scale.
Connected Leadership is about senior leaders actively and visibly engaging in the digital public space; using platforms like LinkedIn not just for broadcasting, but for dialogue, influence, and trust-building. It hinges on four pillars:
Strategic visibility; showing up consistently with clarity of message.
Narrative control; shaping the story of your leadership and organisation.
Executive advocacy; mobilising your network for influence.
Cultural proof; proving, through your visible actions, that what you say about your values is actually how you lead.
The problem for many executives is that they try to do the first three without the fourth. That’s where they get exposed; they sound inspiring online, but internally their culture doesn’t match the image.
This is where the Corporate Love model plugs in.
The Masculine/Feminine axis in the Corporate Love Model affects how your digital leadership style is felt. If your external voice is “people-first” (feminine) but your internal climate is highly transactional (masculine + conditional), you create dissonance which erodes trust both online and in the business.
The Conditional/Unconditional axis determines whether your leadership proves cultural proof or undermines it. If your posts advocate inclusion but your internal regard is performance-contingent without real psychological safety, your people will quietly contradict your message in private channels.
Think of it this way:
Connected Leadership is the signal; what the world hears and sees from you.
Corporate Love is the infrastructure; the internal climate that makes the signal credible, sustainable, and high-trust.
If you have the signal without the infrastructure, you get reputational fragility. If you have the infrastructure without the signal, you miss the amplification and influence that Connected Leadership delivers. It's easy really:
Use Connected Leadership to project strategic narratives, shape market perception, and engage stakeholders directly.
Use the Corporate Love Model to ensure that every message you send externally is reinforced internally through lived leadership behaviours.
The outcomes are also clear:
Increased trust with investors, customers, and talent.
Higher engagement and discretionary effort from teams.
Stronger crisis resilience, because the gap between your stated values and your operating reality is minimal so stakeholders believe you when it matters.
There's also a direct correlation on the direct map between Fiona’s Corporate Love Model quadrants and my Connected Leadership framework which shows exactly how each internal leadership climate impacts a CEO’s external digital influence, credibility, and audience response.
1. Paternalistic (Masculine + Conditional)
Internal climate:
High drive, high clarity, low relational warmth, low unconditional regard.
Strong on execution and crisis response, weaker on sustained engagement and psychological safety.
Connected Leadership effect:
Signal strength: Strong on authority, decisiveness, and strategic direction — LinkedIn posts read as bold, clear, and purposeful.
Risk: Perceived as transactional or authoritarian if personal warmth and cultural proof are missing. Audiences may see thought leadership as “broadcast” rather than dialogue.
External credibility test: Investors and regulators will rate you highly; top talent may hesitate if your online persona feels inconsistent with employee experiences.
Layer your external authority with visible micro-moments of care; comments on employee wins and behind-the-scenes glimpses of leadership humanity. To soften edges and reinforce cultural proof.
An example would be Bob Iger, CEO of Disney.
Iger is known for decisive strategic moves; acquisitions like Pixar, Marvel, and Lucasfilm. And for holding leaders accountable to ambitious performance standards.
His media presence reinforces authority, strategic vision, and operational control. This projects competence to investors and regulators, but it’s softened by occasional personal reflections such as tributes to employees and collaborators.
In a Paternalistic climate, public authority must be balanced with visible human care. Iger achieves this by publicly recognising talent and showing personal gratitude while keeping his strategic edge.
2. Maternalistic (Feminine + Conditional)
Internal climate:
High relational care, clear behavioural boundaries, performance still tied to treatment.
Strong in service-heavy industries, steady in quality, deliberate in scaling.
Connected Leadership effect:
Signal strength: Online leadership voice feels inclusive, approachable, and trustworthy; posts about people and customer experiences land strongly.
Risk: If you’re slow to respond to market shifts, your external narrative can be seen as comfort-first rather than market-first. Stakeholders may perceive caution as hesitancy.
External credibility test: Customer and community audiences will resonate strongly; activist investors may push for faster execution.
Use your external presence to showcase speed and agility; post case studies that prove you can deliver rapid, decisive action without losing your people-first edge.
An example would be Indra Nooyi, former CEO of PepsiCo (Source: Nooyi, My Life in Full, 2021)
Nooyi embedded “Performance with Purpose” into PepsiCo; a clear strategic vision for sustainability, with strong boundaries and performance expectations.
Her public communications combined business discipline with empathy, often highlighting employee welfare, community programs, and environmental goals alongside quarterly performance wins.
In a Maternalistic climate, external authority grows when leaders demonstrate that care and performance are inseparable — Nooyi’s storytelling made these two elements feel like one.
3. Philosophical (Masculine + Unconditional)
Internal climate:
High mission clarity, unconditional trust, minimal enforcement.
Strong for volunteer-heavy or purpose-led contexts; vulnerable to execution drift and free-riding.
Connected Leadership effect:
Signal strength: Magnetic vision and compelling storytelling online; audiences rally to your cause.
Risk: Without visible operational wins, credibility erodes over time; you risk becoming a “visionary without delivery.”
External credibility test: Social followers may grow fast, but analyst calls and shareholder briefings will be tougher unless you link vision to metrics.
Use digital platforms to anchor your vision in proof points such as data, delivery milestones and operational dashboards, to balance inspiration with evidence.
An example would be Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia (Source: Chouinard, Let My People Go Surfing, 2016).
Chouinard’s leadership is mission-first, trust-heavy, and light on enforcement. Employees are given wide latitude, with the expectation that they’ll self-manage around the environmental mission.
Patagonia’s external voice is high-purpose and highly trusted, with Chouinard himself rarely seeking the spotlight but making high-impact statements when he does such as donating the company to fight climate change.
In a Philosophical climate, credibility depends on linking bold values to visible, material actions. Patagonia’s brand remains strong because its Mission rhetoric is matched by radical operational commitments.
4. Universal (Feminine + Unconditional)
Internal climate:
High Psychological Safety, strong belonging, high creativity, minimal performance fear.
Exceptional for innovation, retention, and morale. However there’s a risk of underperformance if guardrails are weak.
Connected Leadership effect:
Signal strength: Online presence radiates authenticity, collaboration, and openness. Your brand becomes synonymous with being “a great place to work.”
Risk: Market-facing stakeholders may question competitive drive and execution discipline if they don’t see hard results from your messaging.
External credibility tests: Employer brand will soar, although investor confidence may waver without evidence of strong performance discipline. Media performance should track organisational performance.
Regularly share posts that link your cultural strength to business outcomes; e.g. show how high safety drives high performance in your context.
An example would be Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft.
Nadella rebuilt Microsoft’s culture around empathy, learning, and inclusion, while encouraging innovation through psychological safety.
His external voice radiates authenticity and humility; LinkedIn posts, interviews, and internal memos share openly about growth mindset and personal learning.
In a Universal climate, external influence is maximised when leaders connect cultural strength directly to competitive results. Nadella often shows how cultural transformation enabled Microsoft’s cloud growth and market resurgence.
This is why when I work with executives on Connected Leadership, I don’t just look at their posting strategy I often assess their internal quadrant because:
Your external digital voice is only as credible as your internal climate.
The fastest way to tank your influence is to let a disconnect form between your LinkedIn narrative and what your people experience day to day.
The fastest way to amplify your influence is to close that gap so your cultural proof and your public proof reinforce each other.
If you run a multi-national, your public influence is now a function of your internal quadrant. The market no longer separates what you say from how you lead internally. Analysts, journalists, investors, and potential hires will triangulate your LinkedIn posts against Glassdoor reviews, employee TikToks, and off-record comments.
In Connected Leadership terms:
Your digital narrative (LinkedIn, interviews, keynote clips) is the signal.
Your internal leadership climate is the amplifier; or the distorter.
When the two align, your influence compounds. When they diverge, credibility erodes fast, especially in multi-million and billion-dollar, public-scrutiny environments.
So how do you identify your internal quadrant? I get my clients to answer these quickly and intuitively with their gut feel.
Step One: Identify the axis.
Axis 1: Masculine ↔ Feminine orientation
Do you naturally push for targets, speed, and execution clarity (Masculine) — or do you focus more on relationships, inclusion, and team wellbeing (Feminine)?
Axis 2: Conditional ↔ Unconditional regard
Is respect and trust earned through performance (Conditional) — or given by default and sustained through care (Unconditional)?
Result:
Masculine + Conditional = Paternalistic
Feminine + Conditional = Maternalistic
Masculine + Unconditional = Philosophical
Feminine + Unconditional = Universal
Step 2 – Identify your external persona
Look at your public digital presence (LinkedIn, interviews, media quotes). Which of these best describes your tone?
Masculine + Conditional: Strategy-heavy, data-led, outcome-driven. Recognition framed around results.
Feminine + Conditional: Empathetic but firm, balancing human stories with clear performance expectations.
Masculine + Unconditional: Mission-first, bold values, public trust in teams without micromanaging detail
Feminine + Unconditional: Relational, inclusive, humble, and psychologically safe. With optimism over targets.
What that looks like in reality:
High alignment:
Satya Nadella (Universal inside, Universal outside). A culture of empathy internally, humility and inclusivity externally; Microsoft’s brand and Glassdoor ratings both improved post-2014.
Partial alignment:
Tim Cook (Maternalistic inside, Paternalistic outside). Internally known for care, but public persona focuses on operational excellence and shareholder returns. Creates resilience with investors but underplays internal strengths in attracting talent.
Low alignment:
Travis Kalanick, former Uber CEO (Paternalistic inside, Universal outside). Projected a founder-friendly, innovative persona publicly while running a cutthroat internal culture. Eventually his personal and the organisational credibility collapsed following internal unrest and public scandals.
Step 3 – Connected Leadership action plan
If aligned: Double down. Use digital platforms to make the link between culture and results explicit. Investors love cultural clarity when it’s tied to metrics.
If partial: Identify which audience you’re underserving - internal or external - and adjust messaging E.g. if you’re Relational internally but Tough externally, show more human stories to investors and the market to balance perception.
If low alignment: Decide whether the internal climate needs to shift, the external voice needs recalibration, or both. In Connected Leadership, misalignment causes reputational drag; it slows hiring, trust-building, and investor confidence.
The point is simple: Leadership climate is not a mood, a personality quirk, or a matter of preference; it’s an operating condition that will either accelerate or erode your results. The Corporate Love Model makes this explicit, and when paired with Connected Leadership it becomes both the internal infrastructure and the external amplifier for sustained performance.
Organisations today cannot afford a culture that runs on autopilot. An unexamined climate is already costing you; in attrition, in underperformance and in missed market opportunities. You’re already leading with a blend of drive and regard, conditional and unconditional respect; the only question is whether it’s the right blend for where your organisation strategically wants to be headed next.
So the next step is to map your climate. Diagnose it at the organisational and divisional level. Decide the quadrant or blend you need for the next 12–18 months; design the systems and behaviours to make it real, and drill those shifts until they’re second nature. Then make sure your external narrative matches the internal reality, so the cultural proof behind your leadership is as strong as the strategy you project to the market.
If you need help with any of that - you know where I am! Feel free to DM me :)
FAQS:
Q1. Your internal culture is Philosophical (Masculine + Unconditional), but your external persona on LinkedIn leans Paternalistic (Masculine + Conditional). What’s the most likely long-term risk and how can you correct it without undermining investor confidence?
A1. The risk is internal disillusionment and erosion of trust. Teams experience high autonomy and mission-first care, yet see you publicly prioritising outcomes and conditional rewards; creating a “split reality” that can feel like hypocrisy. Correction: Keep the outcome focus externally, but integrate the narrative about how Mission and trust drive those results. Use investor presentations to link your Unconditional Regard to measurable performance metrics such as retention, innovation cycle time.
Q2. A competitor’s CEO has a Universal external persona but runs a Paternalistic internal climate. What advantage does this give you in a Connected Leadership context and how would you exploit it?
A2. Their misalignment is a credibility time-bomb. Once employees speak publicly, Glassdoor reviews, or LinkedIn posts reveal the internal climate, trust in them and their organisation will collapse. Your advantage: You can position your company’s alignment as a differentiator, e.g. “what we say externally is exactly how we lead internally” , in recruitment marketing, investor Q&As, and employee advocacy.
Q3. You score high on Unconditional Regard internally but low on task clarity, and your public persona is strong on outcomes. Which Connected Leadership principle is at risk here?
A3. The principle of consistency as cultural proof. Externally you’re promising precision, internally you’re under-delivering operational clarity. The gap weakens both employee advocacy and customer confidence because lived experience doesn’t match the brand promise.
Q4. A board member challenges your plan to publicise your Universal quadrant culture, claiming “that’s too soft for our market.” How do you win them over without diluting your leadership philosophy?
A4. Translate Universal culture into hard metrics: lower attrition → lower hiring cost, higher psychological safety → faster innovation, stronger inclusion → broader market access. Frame it as performance through culture, not sentiment. Use Connected Leadership data on cultural-ROI correlation to show competitive advantage.
Q5. During a crisis, your instinct is to shift from Maternalistic to Paternalistic mode. How do you manage this shift publicly so it doesn’t undermine the trust you’ve built?
A5. Pre-announce the shift as intentional: “We’re entering a phase that requires sharper execution focus to navigate this challenge, but our commitment to care and respect remains constant.” This maintains Connected Leadership transparency and ensures the market sees strategic agility, not personality change.
Q6. If your external persona is more “balanced quadrant” than your internal reality, is that a strength or liability?
A6. It’s a liability if it’s unmanaged; stakeholders will expect the balance internally and be disappointed when they find a dominant quadrant. It can only be a strength if you’re actively using the external voice to pull the internal culture towards that balance, with visible steps and milestones.