When my son got old enough so that I thought he needed to be disciplined, I thought I had two basic choices: Punish him or reward him. Obviously, most interactions by most parents involves some blend of the above.
Love offers a much better guide. As soon as possible, invite your child to develop his or her own ability to makes decisions grounded in Love. Imagine how much more effective this could be than you having to provide the discipline all the time. Although this other approach requires much more sophistication and patience it typically yields better results.
Leadership is equally complex. Unfortunately, the majority of leaders have decided there is only one way to handle what they view as a substandard performance by an employee. Their regular approach is to use punishment.
Here is the problem for caregivers: Punishment relies on the power of fear. Love's alternative looks something like an invitation.
Imagine that you are dealing with someone for whom you have leadership responsibility. What if you entered a pattern of encounters with this person in which you described the best behavior, invited them to engage that pattern, and then encouraged them (rather than threatening them) to perform to a new standard, supporting them along the way?
The advantage of this choice is that this kind of leadership is much more consistent with loving care. It will soon generate much better behaviors grounded in personal decisions rather than in your discipline.
Punishment makes most people nervous. It causes them to adapt to the ideas of someone else rather than their own.
Self-motivated people who are treated like responsible adults are far more likely to deliver the kind of care we seek. This is because they will use their own best gifts, not another person's.
The finest leaders practice the art of invitation and offer guidelines, encouragement and training. The least effective leaders resort to the short cuts of threats and punishment.
Loving leadership requires more sophistication and thought than does threats. It calls us to engage not only our best gifts, but to awaken the better angels in each other.
-Rev. Erie Chapman
Journal of Sacred Work 
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