Lead The Shift: A Message from the President’s Office (Vol. 1, No. 3)
- Leaders Up
- 4 days ago
- 4 min read
By Jeffery Wallace
The Shift | Vol. 1, No. 3 – Liberating Radical Imagination
Liberating Imagination Through Love
This issue asks us to name how LeadersUp moves from bold ideas to tangible solutions. For imagination to be truly liberating, it must be grounded in a practice of radical love. Drawing from bell hooks, I see this love as more than a sentiment; it is the discipline and the choice that turns our imagination into action.
Radical imagination is not fantasy; it is the conviction that we can build what does not yet exist. It is the blueprint that gives hope its structure. It is the courage to look directly at systems built to categorize and contain people and still insist, with clear eyes, that we can build systems designed to connect, to repair, and to expand freedom. Imagination does not sustain itself on inspiration alone. It needs a foundation strong enough to hold the weight of real change. That foundation is love.
Radical self-love, in this context, is not individualism dressed up as empowerment. It is the practice of refusing the lie that you are “less than,” incapable, or disposable. It is the insistence that purpose, peace, and joy are not rewards you earn after you prove your worth. They are conditions you deserve as you become free. When young adults are surrounded by systems that label them “at-risk” or “disconnected,” radical self-love becomes a form of survival and a form of strategy. It is how dignity stays intact long enough for power to be claimed.
Radical communal love extends that practice outward. It is the commitment to one another’s growth and well-being, expressed through patience, accountability, collaboration, and kindness. These are not soft virtues. They are strategic ones. Communal love is what makes “ecosystem” more than a buzzword. It is what turns coordination into solidarity, so we stop asking young people to navigate fragmented systems alone and start doing the hard work of aligning the systems around them.
This is where our current strategy demonstrates a radically imaginative shift in how we approach economic equity. We are not simply preparing talent to enter existing systems. We are co-creating the systems young people will inherit, and we are doing it by treating BIPOC young adults as designers and decision-makers. The Policy Roundtable Series and the inaugural launch of the LA Economic Empowerment Alliance put young people at the center of building a policy agenda. That is love made operational. Evidence is not only what can be counted. Evidence is also what has been lived, survived, and then translated into a blueprint for change.
Love is also showing up in governance. The Los Angeles County Workforce Development Board’s step to establish a youth committee is a deliberate move in the right direction. It is an expression of love that says, “We are going to reconnect those who have been disconnected by design, and we are going to bring young people into the decision-making space where priorities are set, resources move, and systems are shaped.” That is not performative inclusion. That is power-sharing with receipts. Love is not only what we feel; it is also what we do. Love is what we build.
MacKenzie Scott’s 2023 investment belongs in this story not as a footnote, but as a mirror held up to what radical love can look like in public. Some resources arrive with noise, with strings, with the need to be legitimized. This one came like a door opening, quiet and clear, trusting our capacity to use freedom well. That kind of giving does not just underwrite work. It restores breath. It widens the horizon. It insists that the people closest to the problem can also be closest to the solution. In that way, the investment did not merely support LeadersUp. It affirmed the possibility that our imagination could become infrastructure.
My bold idea for next year is demanding and straightforward: make radical love measurable and executable across the organization. Let it shape how we lead internally, how we partner externally, how we design policy, how we measure impact, and how we steward power. When love becomes a daily practice, radical imagination stops being a theme and becomes a method.
This is the closing I want to leave with you, the part that matters most. Somewhere in Los Angeles, a young person is trying to decide whether the future includes them. Not in theory. Not in someone’s speech. In their actual life. Your support helps make that belonging a reality. It turns a 'maybe' into a plan, a plan into a pathway, and a pathway into a living wage with dignity.
When you see the donation button, do not treat it like an optional add-on to a good story. Treat it like a ballot. Press it as if you are casting a vote for someone’s tomorrow. Press it because you understand that love is not just what we say; love is what we fund, what we build, and what we refuse to abandon.
Cast a vote for someone’s tomorrow.
Jeffery Wallace is the President and CEO at LeadersUp, driving our mission to build a future-proof economy where everyone can learn, earn, and thrive.
