Almost everything you do in life is made better when you are positive. Any difficult situation is handled better if one maintains a positive attitude. Leadership is no different. Positive leadership matters and has been shown to have a beneficial impact on the satisfaction, engagement, and performance of individuals, teams and organizations. So, what is positive leadership??

Positive leadership is defined as “the implementation of multiple positive practices that help individuals and organizations achieve their highest potential, flourish at work, experience elevating energy and achieve levels of effectiveness.” Positive leadership is modeling, facilitating, and purposefully influencing positive emotions that encourage team members and employees to excel in their work. Positive leaders foster an empowering environment through communication, accountability, emotional intelligence, motivation, and exemplary work ethic. A positive leadership strives to enact an effective and an emotionally engaged team in the easiest way possible. This creates positive work conditions for employees and builds strong relationships through teamwork. Thus, helping the organization success.

Positivity is a skill that requires work every day. It may seem to everyone that you are just a positive person and you were born with that type of attitude/personality. This is not the case. Positive leaders have worked on their ability to overcome challenges and obstacles. It takes focus and perseverance to be positive each day. Positive leaders still have the same fears and struggles as others but they don’t let them dominate their behavior and attitude. After all, who wants to follow a “Negative Nancy” or a “Debbie Downer ” type leader. This type of negativity is usually passed to the team and creates a recipe for disaster.

If you want to be a positive leader in your organization, here are some pointers based on research. You have to do more than just smile. You have to be authentic, which means you must:

1. Show you genuinely care for your teammates
2. Empower your team members to be autonomous and train them for success.
3. Show compassion when team members are struggling.
4. Support your team members and serve as their champion
5. Serve as a role model and demonstrate positive social exchanges (getting employees to keep conversations at work positive and avoid gossip and spreading negative information).
6. Show hope for the future and inspire people at work.
7. Bring energy and enthusiasm to work to motivate the team.
8. Remind your employees about the purpose of their work.
9. Treat all employees with respect and integrity.
10. Find and share humor with your team.
11. Focus on strengths and be the positive change agent.
12. Create a culture where everyone cheers each other on.
13. Focus on coming up with solutions to problems. Be optimistic when tackling challenges.
14. Accept that there will be conflict and address it in a timely manner.

It’s not easy for anyone to constantly display a positive perspective, especially during challenging times. It requires dedication, persistence, and continual focus for a leader to remain optimistic and encouraging/inspirational around your team members. But, positivity is something that we all can work on developing to build a better workplace for everyone in the organization.

POSITIVE LEADERSHIP MATTERS!

What are you doing to make your work environment positive?? Please leave a comment below.