As I reflected on the leadership seminar we attended last week (where the main theme was how to deal with people whose personalities are difficult), one of the things I remember being mentioned was a common group of people called ‘’Negatives’’. These are the ‘’Nay Sayers’’, those who always view the glass as half empty. I have always believed that most people, and particularly most leaders, should always try to think positively at all times. From a leadership perspective, I would suggest that positivity is arguably the most important qualities of a leader.
According to neuroscientists, a negative mindset is almost always associated with a risk-based mindset. In that state of mind, a person is less flexible, unwilling to learn and lacks the willingness to try new things. In order to visualize and influence others towards a better future, a leader must have an open, growthbased and flexible mindset. The problem is that our brains are programmed to foresee the risk in most situations and to define risk aversion as more important than other factors. From an evolutional point of view, I tend to think that this is plausible but it also has some unforeseen effects on the organizational world where “busyness” can negatively impact the success (or not) of a leader. This may include failing to get work done, failing to make a good impression and not handling feedback effectively. I tend to believe that ‘’risk perception’’ is to blame for giving priority to less useful leadership qualities and management behaviors. Over the years, we have known that appropriate and authentic recognition and praise at the workplace delivers impressive results at every level. Such a gesture builds confidence, capability, status and new habits among other virtues. In addition, we are told that we should aim at telling our colleagues five times more about what they are doing right as opposed to what they might be doing wrong. What is referred to as negativity bias often empowers us to be more reactive and sensitive to something that is potentially dangerous, problematic or harmful. In this respect, if the negative biases get the best of us, most of the people would literally be the opposite. This is because we are focusing on the positives five times more than the negatives.
Feedback is a good example of how people can buy into intellectuality and the power of potential feedback but this does not always translate into actual behavior for a number of reasons. Feedback has become something emotive and something that triggers risk. This mindset and risk perception is important because it influences our behavior choices. If you look for problems, then you will find them. If everything we see is mistakes and what is not done right, our negative bias is likely to be strengthened and confirmed as realistic. This way of thinking is something that we embed. From neuroscience, we learn that what we focus our attention on mostly defines our reality and perception. Our reality changes in tandem with what gets our attention. In this respect, positive thinking is one of the priority qualities of leadership. This raises an interesting question; what leadership qualities would you choose to focus on and how can your decisions, behaviors and your influence on others change if you purposely move your attention around?