Leading with Love: Building a Better World from the Inside Out

After 25 years as a mom and professional in the field, I’ve learned that lasting change doesn’t come from control—it comes from compassion.

In the face of growing division and systems under threat, we need a new kind of leadership—one rooted not in fear or hierarchy, but in deep love and shared humanity. This post is personal, timely, and a call to lead differently.

For more than 25 years, I’ve lived and worked at the intersection of love and systems.

As a mom to children with disabilities, I’ve navigated special education, healthcare, and service systems not just as an observer, but as someone who’s relied on them to support the people I love most.

As a professional in the field of special education and disability advocacy, I’ve sat at policy tables, led research, and trained families and educators. I’ve written books, spoken on national stages, and worked side by side with those trying to create change from within.

And here’s what I’ve learned: the systems we move through are often built for efficiency, not empathy. For compliance, not compassion.

But what truly transforms lives and institutions isn’t more bureaucracy.
It’s love.

Not love as sentiment.
Not love as something soft or passive.
But love as strategy.
Love as structure.
Love as a way to lead people—not through fear, urgency, or control—but through presence, humanity, and trust.

When Love Enters the Room, the Conversation Changes

I’ve seen this firsthand: in IEP meetings, advocacy circles, healing spaces, and moments with my children.

When love enters the conversation, we put ourselves in other people’s shoes.
We stop performing and start being real.
We stop “othering” and start remembering that we belong to one another.

That doesn’t mean there’s no conflict. But it does mean there’s more care in how we move through it.

Leading with love isn’t a bypass. It’s not about avoiding pain or ignoring injustice.
It’s about bringing our full humanity to the work of transformation. And recognizing that change is sustainable only when it’s rooted in dignity—not domination.

Right Now, It Matters More Than Ever

We’re watching the very systems designed to protect our most vulnerable—education, healthcare, disability services, civil rights—come under threat.
We’re seeing division, cruelty, and disconnection rise in their place.

In times like these, leading with love isn’t just powerful.
It’s essential.

Because fear breeds control.
But love builds movements.

We can’t fight dehumanization with more dehumanization.
We have to choose a different kind of power.

Love Is Not the Opposite of Strategy. It Is Strategy.

When I say I want to lead with love, I’m not saying I don’t care about outcomes.
I’m saying I care enough about outcomes to lead in a way that creates lasting impact, not temporary compliance.

I’m saying:

• Love looks like empathy in policymaking.

• Love looks like co-creating instead of top-down decisions.

• Love looks like pausing to ask, “Who’s missing from this table?”

• Love looks like honoring grief, joy, and healing as valid parts of the leadership journey.

This Is Personal

I’m a mom, a wife, a former academic, an advocate, a spiritual seeker, a human being who’s lived through grief and learned how to stay soft anyway.

I’ve led projects, written books, stood on stages. But the most meaningful moments of my leadership have come in quiet places—where someone felt seen, safe, and invited to show up fully.

That’s what love does.
It invites people into wholeness.

A New Kind of Power

The world is tired of performative power.
It’s hungry for authenticity. For honesty. For leaders who don’t need to be perfect—but who are willing to be present.

I believe we’re being asked to create something new.
To dismantle what no longer serves and rebuild in a way that centers connection over control, curiosity over certainty, and love over fear.

I don’t have all the answers, but I know this: love is the only way forward that feels true.

Author note:

This post is part of my continued journey to reimagine leadership, purpose, and healing in the second half of life. If you're new here, I invite you to read my memoir Silence and Light: A Mother’s Journey of Self-Discovery through Advocacy, where this transformation began—and follow my upcoming work as I keep learning how to lead with love, not just in my advocacy, but in everything I do.