6 minute read
HAVING POSITIVE IMPACT
Ross Swan
How do you want to be remembered as a leader, more importantly as a person? This is a question I often ask leaders when I am working with them as their leadership coach and the answers I receive, are always positive. I have yet to have anyone answer, “I want to have a negative impact on people,” no matter how they are currently performing as a leader, good or bad.
One thing I have found, is that the better leaders of self are always conscious of the impact their behaviour has on other people and they continually focus on ways to make sure the impact is positive. This is no different for business leaders.
In business and in life, you can’t always limit what you are telling people to the positive and withhold the negative. You have an obligation to be transparent. Its looking for the positives in the negative that’s key here. In essence, it is taking the optimistic view on things. Some people do this naturally and others must work on it at a more conscious level. To get yourself into that high energy zone and remain there, it’s important to identify those energy draining aspects at work and in life. Awareness is crucial to stop your energy being diluted with negative thoughts.
We all have negative thoughts at times, the key is to be aware of those negative thoughts and be conscious of the impact that your negativity might be having, not only on yourself, but on others.
As a leader, you should always be trying to get the best out of yourself and other people. That’s unlikely to happen if you are walking about sulking, yelling, or any other way it manifests. No matter how good we are at hiding our energy drain, and how well we use our words, we can’t change the energy we emanate, and others will definitively pick up on that.
When it comes to personally, all you are doing is limiting what you can achieve. Remember, we achieve more with a positive mindset because its that mindset that fuels your power. It’s that positive energy that drives us forward, negative energy makes us tired not proactive. Given that, when entrusted with leading a team, keeping everyone positive is necessary for high performance. You don’t want them underachieving for the sake of your mood. Even it’s for an hour, that’s a lot of hours when you multiply out by the number in your team, not to mention any ripple effect. In this case, you are the team’s performance problem, certainly not their solution.
Going within and truthfully examining the source of your negative energy drain is critical. It could stem from a nonalignment of values, a blocking belief, fears, and worries and the list goes on. Once identified, then a proactive stance is needed to be taken to reduce it to such a level that it no longer fuels a negative reaction and a positive energy drain.
Going within and truthfully examining the source of your negative energy drain is critical. It could stem from a nonalignment of values, a blocking belief, fears, and worries and the list goes on. Once identified, then a proactive stance is needed to reduce it to such a level that it no longer fuels a negative reaction and causing a positive energy drain.
Once you start to understand what drains your energy then you are in a better position to recognize the signs in others so you can help them build their own awareness. Have them be a reflection of you, not you being a reflection of them. It is your choice how you react to things. Apart from reacting wisely, the idea here is to become increasingly aware of how people, situations, or thoughts, continually drain our life energy without us even realizing it.
A true leader can identify this dynamic in themselves through a consciousness of self. Once they have energised themselves, they can do the needful and help others turn their downward spiralling energy around. Being able to influence people and help them recognize their energy drains and how to “plug” them certainly strengthens the relationship. You become a person people want to connect with not disconnect with.
When you focus on influencing people at work to manage their energy levels, it will become systemic and the whole team will grow much stronger. Your ability to influence is therefore important in how effective you are. This applies, both on a personal level as well at work. Not matter what we are doing in our life, we are often faced with having to influence others. Simply, when you want to influence a person to do something, it’s important to understand that their decision will always be based on whether they believe it will bring them closer to something positive. If its bad news you are delivering, it is leaving them with a positive, no matter how small, it’s what you leave them with that counts.
A good summary of how to influence can be seen in “Go Giver” Book Series, Author Bob Burg, he states the five steps to being a good influencer are as follows. As you can see, the first point is to master your emotions. That is be aware of your emotions and the effect on your energy levels.
• Master your emotions.
• Step into the other persons shoes.
• Set the context.
• Communicate with tact & empathy.
• Let go of having to be right.
So, if you want to have a positive impact on people, be conscious of your behaviour and your ability to influence others as it will open the path to take you where you want to go as a leader and as a person.
About Ross Swan
CEO Soul Inspired Leadership Pte Ltd
Ross is a perceptive and responsive leadership consultant, coach, and trainer, with broad experience in varied industries worldwide continually helping leaders to reduce their stress in managing people.
Ross is also a dynamic speaker and podcaster with outstanding skills in communication, presentation, training, team building, and interpersonal relations.
He works internationally with his projects encompassing many diverse cultural backgrounds.
Throughout the years, Ross has developed a growing desire to put an ongoing emphasis in bringing more soul into business and he believes that the most effective leaders stay true to their authenticity by being soul inspired and it starts by being able to lead yourself.
You can catch Ross at:
www.soul-inspired-leadership.com
