Just this March 19, I attended the annual student-leader team-building activity at my university, De La Salle University Manila. One of the things they talked about was the Lasallian East Asia District and their acrostic for L.E.A.D.
- Live out your passion
- Engage with the peripheries
- Aspire for change
- Dare to love
I want to focus on the last one — dare to love.
As you may know, the Lasallian philosophy is deeply rooted in Christianity, as such, when we try to understand what this phrase means, we have to look at it theologically. What does it mean to love in the Christian way?
Theologically speaking, love is a decision, not an emotion. Love is not passion, but, love can be passionate. Love is about humility, but at the same time it is also about honesty. As we can see, love encompasses everything, including the first 3 lines of the above acrostic.
But as leaders, we are not just called to love, we are called to dare to love. Why? What about love should we be daring about? What does being daring imply?
When we tell someone, “I dare you.” It usually means that we are daring them to do something that they otherwise wouldn’t do because of some underlying fear. We can dare someone to watch a horror movie if they are afraid of horror movies. We can dare someone to ride a zipline if they’re afraid of heights.
As such, when we dare a person to love, it means that they have an underlying fear to do so. But here’s the thing, the Lasallian calling dares us to love.
“But wait! I’m not afraid to love! I love my family and others all the time!”
Well yes of course, we feel comfortable loving people who we know love us back. This makes them easy to love to an extent. But think about it theologically for a second. What does love imply?
You see, when the Lasallian calling dares us to love, it means that…
We are dared to face our fear of committing.
We are dared to face our fear of connecting.
We are dared to face our fear of correcting.
Is there a solution we should bring up but we don’t because we are afraid of scrutiny? Are there people who we can invite but doing so requires we commit to being friends with them first? Is there a project we are afraid of spending too much time on?
All these questions can be summarized to:
“Do I lead with love?”
Do I love my peers enough for me to entertain their scrutiny? Do I love them enough to be honest with my criticism? Do I love my acquaintances enough for me build deeper connections with them? Do I love my community enough for me to commit to this project?
In a world where genuine loving leadership is in decline, we, as the future leaders of tomorrow, should be dared to say yes.
Another event, another article. This one was written in response to me joining the 2025 DLSU Manila CSO LeAD.
Gab With Tie 
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