Laura Sanchez-Greenberg Reveals Why Love is the “Master Key” to Outperformance

Laura Sanchez-Greenberg, Founder, Verde Associates

What allows people and teams to outperform? What drives team health? 

These two big questions fuel Laura Sanchez-Greenberg’s work—as the founder of Verde Associates, as an executive coach, and as an academic who specializes in performance research. Scholars have pointed to lots of measures that improve team performance—team cohesion, shared purpose, communication. But Laura argues that all of those measures are really “artifacts of an emotional connection.” 

In other words, love.

Laura’s approach with her clients is influenced by bell hooks’s concept of leading with a “love ethic.” As hooks explains in her article “Love as the Practice of Freedom,” “To serve another I cannot see them as an object, I must see their subjecthood.” Laura applies this same model to her own practice, explaining, “To truly drive transformational growth, we have to be able to love our clients and see them in totality.”

Laura knows that using the word “love” runs the risk of making her methods seem soft, but for her, love is just one way of framing the concept that we perform best in situations where we feel a deep sense of connection. She explains,  

“You can use a different word than love. People sometimes use ‘open-mindedness’ or ‘generous assumptions.’ But I think the master key is just radical openness while still maintaining your personal boundaries. I can love you or see you completely where you are, appreciate what is there, and try to build on that while still maintaining my separateness.”

Far from a soft emotion, Laura explains, love often requires vulnerability, real action, and most of all, courage. 

But what does love look like in a professional setting? Laura emphasizes that her vision is not about romantic love. Instead, it is a deep reverence and respect for every aspect of the people you work with, including in areas where you disagree. Or as Laura describes it, “an unconditional regard for their humanity and understanding that entrepreneurs are doing big things.”

In fact, Laura notes, Pete describes this kind of emotional connection in his book when he lays out his model for standing up a Purpose Pillar of Love as entrepreneurs build the foundation for their purpose. He points out, “Making a conscious decision to live with love profoundly changes you and the world. It helps you build a strong relationship with yourself, foster healthy relationships with others, and bring a new kind of meaning to your life.” Love, then, can represent a grounding point for each of our relationships and interactions, which provides a foundation for living out our purpose.

Laura argues that love intersects with increased performance in tangible ways. Entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs sometimes worry that by pursuing something about which they’re deeply passionate—something they love and something they see as an act of service—they’ll inevitably burn themselves out. Their deep connection will drive them to invest so fully that they lose the boundary between who they are, what they do, and what they want to accomplish.

But according to Laura, when we look at performance metrics, this concern simply doesn’t bear out. She explains, “If you look at the really high performers, one of the things they do is that they love the thing so much that they know they’ve got to put their own oxygen mask on first. The difference between truly excellent performers, outsized performers, and merely high performers is what they do in recovery and rest.”

Love also intersects with honor and integrity, two critically important metrics in successful leaders. Laura says, “The people we find that have the highest integrity or authenticity, it’s because their external narrative is the same as their internal narrative. When we feel insecure or protective, it’s usually something we’re afraid of. It turns out love is the master key to transformation.”

In her own practice, Laura explains that leading with love means loving her clients in order to support them through growth and transformation. It’s an approach that may resonate even more deeply with entrepreneurs, many of whom have often experienced personal challenges. For example, 45% of entrepreneurs can present with dyslexia, ADHD, or both. Entrepreneurs are also five times more likely to have lost a parent in childhood.

Those challenges, though, are often a catalyst that allows entrepreneurs to develop the grit and resilience they need to be successful. In fact, according to Laura, the very things her clients think hold them back are actually their superpowers—as long as they avoid letting those same things become their kryptonite.

Laura points out that all of the seminal works on leadership hinge on one key idea: “Know thyself.” That requires helping clients reflect on who they are in totality. One way Laura puts this into practice is through appreciative inquiry—by asking clients things like “When is a time you’ve been good at something?” and then building on those strengths.

Laura believes that forming these honest, reverent connections with her clients is what allows her to truly support their growth. As Laura explains it,

“Having worked with hundreds of entrepreneurs, the master key isn’t that I have a really huge coaching toolkit—I do. It’s the moment that I look across the table and help someone feel fully seen. That’s what love is. They connect and realize, ‘Here’s someone who sees what’s good in me and what’s broken and sees how they’re connected. I can’t pull those apart. The things that hurt are also the things that have made me successful.”