by Therese Johansson

I'm tall, blonde and some people think I'm good-looking, and I'm also fun-loving and mischievous. This combination has caused me to receive a lot of criticism for my personality. I can be misunderstood as a girl in younger days and as a woman nowadays. I invite people to fall in love with me and want more, I actually have myself to blame.

I readily adapted to the ranks as best I could, and my exuberant personality had to live in a box. It was in my total crash and the way back that I had had enough, it has taken many years, but in the last year I have had the help of an incredibly nice person to dare to let my whole self out and put the responsibility for any opinions where they belong – in those who express them.

Within the work environment, we work with these issues and what I see is that nice men don't dare to express a simple compliment or put a comforting hand on an arm to think if it can be perceived as sexual harassment. There are also women who may be afraid to bring out their "femininity" for fear of being misunderstood.

I consider this to be incredibly sad and a great weakness, especially in working life, considering that people actually feel very good from loving treatment. It is of great importance for our well-being, which in turn positively affects the working environment in companies. Fear and inhibitions, on the other hand, have the opposite effect on people, and then the working climate is also negatively affected.

Focus on good examples

I spoke with an incredibly fine male leader on this subject and I said that I resent not being allowed to act lovingly because there are a few who do not know how to behave, men as well as women. I believe that we should work on the behaviors that are wrong, show courage and action where it belongs, instead of us raising an entire population to not dare to demonstrate loving behavior.

The recently noticed #metoo movement is an example of strong people standing up against wrongful behavior. I would, however, have wished that this campaign was not as gender-focused as it was, but that we instead look at concerns from both men's and women's points of view. Above all, I wish we look more at all the good examples and minimize the focus on the small percentage who behave unworthily, men as well as women.

On the way to my career success story, I have met many fine men who helped me move forward through development, for which I feel great gratitude. Then, unfortunately, there are also a few men who have demonstrated inappropriate behaviour. The point is that the nice men make up a large majority of the men who misbehaved with me.

In the same way, I have come across a few women who, for example, ride on their sexuality to influence and who feel rivalry towards their fellow sisters, but in my opinion, they are a few in comparison to the wonderful fellow sisters who have been part of my life's journey . We don't need gender distribution, but instead an understanding that wrong behaviors exist in both women and men, just as good behaviors really exist in both sexes.

Act lovingly

A friend and I had a discussion about this topic from a female and male perspective, the final content for me was that according to the Bible, there are four different versions of love. If you look up love on Wikipedia, you will find that love is defined as a spectrum of emotions, characterized by tenderness, affection, togetherness and that it comes in different variants:

We have Agape, the unconditional and selfless form of love. The most difficult variant in my opinion, which requires a lot of training and personal development to become truly genuine.

Eros is the form of love that humanity has acquired is the only form of love in my opinion. This type of love is between couples and based on passion, lust and infatuation,

Storge (There are different spellings) is the love that occurs in family contexts and blood relations, not in connection with eros.

Branch office the love that can be "sisterly" or "brotherly" does not have to be blood ties but in my interpretation friendly love regardless of gender. Filia and Agape in the workplace between all employees is something every organization should strive for, I believe, as it has a great positive impact on people.

To make this personal and give you frames of reference, I feel agape for my animals, eros for the man I chose, storge for my nieces and nephews and branch for my wonderful friends and co-workers, men as well as women.

Agape have decided to practice spreading to everything and everyone, it does not mean that I have the right to privacy and boundaries. To achieve this, I have to constantly develop my personality with the motto of achieving a higher degree of self-love. Loving yourself is essential to having the ability to love others. It makes it easier to interpret with love, respond with love and spread love.

I also repeat the same message as from previous columns: We are only human, we are not perfect, we will not be perfect, but we can take responsibility for constantly training and practicing to become a slightly better version of ourselves .

Have the courage to be the leader who chooses to interpret with love, respond with love and spread love – unconditionally and with the courage to have integrity and to set boundaries.