Positive Psychology Techniques for Leaders to Coach Their Team Members

Over the last few years, the field of psychology has been spending more time looking at what makes us feel good and do great things. Positive psychologists have been asking questions such as:

·?????? How do we humans overcome the challenges and adversities in our lives and keep going?

·?????? What makes us optimistic and resilient?

·?????? Can we consciously manipulate our emotional state?

Amazingly enough, we are learning more about how our brains work. We can support ourselves and each other in making life easier and more enjoyable, even when the going gets tough.

Some of these techniques are amazing for leaders to help their teams cope better with the stresses of work. We can support each other to make work less of a grind and more satisfying. The impacts of doing so are far greater than just the people we work with. If they go home a happier person, then they will spread happiness through their interactions with their friends and family.

Here are four aspects of positive psychology that leaders can use in their daily management of their teams and colleagues.

Appreciative Inquiry (AI)

AI has a great technique for retrospectives when you have the whole team in a room and can explore a positive future you want to create. This future is called the ‘positive core’. This could be anything from ‘supporting our users to achieve their goals’ to ‘being the best team in the organisation’.

Stage one is about discovery. What’s best? Ask each other positive questions about the positive core. Share stories with each other about the positive core, including experiences you’ve had or would like to have. Above all, stay curious about the subject and avoid locking anything down.

Stage two focuses on dreaming. What’s next? In your group, create a positive and compelling vision of the future based on what came to light during stage one. Answer the question, ‘What might it be?’

In stage three, you’ll start to design. How might we? What parts of the current situation will we keep in the new state? Stay rooted in the positivity of the past; this helps ensure the vision created in stage two is grounded, challenging, and motivating.

Finally, stage four is creating our destiny. What will we? In this stage, we will start the work of making your vision a reality. By having a positive focus, we naturally create momentum. You may find your colleagues spontaneously work on some part because they’re passionate about it. They’ve created the vision and want to see it come to life. Allow the team to self-organise and self-manage their way along, and you’ll be surprised by what they can achieve.

Gratitude

It turns out that being grateful is just as good for the person expressing gratitude as it is for the person who receives it. Grateful people are more determined, optimistic, and helpful. Gratitude also contributes to your belief that life is manageable, meaningful, and understandable. It does all this by helping you positively reframe your past experiences.

Remember a colleague who helped you during the week and DM them on a Friday to thank them for what they did. It’s a great way for both of you to finish the week, and it may just inspire your colleague to thank someone who has helped them, too.

Leaders, keep gratitude logs for your colleagues and teams where you notice things going well as they happen. These logs make a valuable resource for the annual review process, allowing you to remember the everyday things people do in their work that contribute to the organisation as well as the exceptional.

In 1:1 meetings, both parties can ask each other what has gone well since our last meeting. Information that can help both of you in your day-to-day work is likely to be revealed. Leaders will get a good news story to send up the organisation, and their colleagues will understand behaviours leaders want to see more of.

Optimism

When your colleagues feel optimistic, the impact is better than having positive people around you at work. Optimistic people are less anxious, have better immunity (perfect in the time of Covid), and are more effective at coping with what life throws at them. All these qualities are good for both the team members themselves and your organisation as a whole. I do love a win-win!

If you know a colleague is struggling to be optimistic about a situation, here is a five-ish step process you can use as the basis of a coaching session to support them into a more positive position.

1.?????? ?

a.?????? What is the evidence for your negative explanation or belief?

b.?????? What counter-evidence can you think of that suggests it isn’t true?

2.?????? Brainstorm as many alternative and more positive explanations for this situation as you can think of. Set a target of 3, 5, or even 10. Think in terms of external, temporary, and specific causes. Don’t be side-tracked into justifying why these alternatives aren’t true.

3.?????? Discuss the implications of the negative situation. Identify and describe the worst thing that could happen, and rank how likely it is on a scale of 1 – 10. Then, do the same with the best thing that could happen. Finally, what is most likely to happen? Looking at the problem from multiple angles will help you arrive at a more realistic explanation of the situation.

4.?????? Consider which explanations or beliefs from steps 2 and 3 are most useful for motivation, achieving goals, and achieving a good mood.

5.?????? Make an action plan. Focus on what can be done to improve the situation. This is essential to avoid feeling helpless about the situation you’ve been discussing. Support your colleague however they need to fulfil this action plan, but remember it is theirs, and you only have to help them be accountable to themselves for it.

Resilience

More resilient people are more curious about the world around them, a great skill for your team when working in knowledge work such as software development. Your more resilient colleagues will also be more supportive of those around them, spreading the ability to create fabulous software for your customers and users. When our resilience is high, we perceive challenges and setbacks as more manageable than we otherwise would.

Thankfully, resilience is a skill we can learn. As leaders, we can help those around us build this skill through the Three Ds: Distract, Distance, and Dispute. The next time you see a colleague or team struggling with negativity, try one of these to support them over their mental hurdles.

Distraction needs to happen in the moment. When you start to feel the negative thought patterns building up, you can focus your thoughts on something else. If you notice your colleagues are starting to ruminate on something negative, change the conversation to something completely different. You could talk about something that happened in an earlier meeting or notice what the weather is like out the window. (This is great when toddlers have a meltdown, too!)

Distancing ourselves away from the immediacy of the situation can help us to put the event into a broader context and feel our reactions less intensely. Try asking your colleagues questions such as Will this matter tomorrow? What could happen that’s worse than this? What parts of our work are unaffected by this situation?

Finally, we can disrupt negative thought patterns by looking for evidence against them. Perfect for empirical frameworks like Scrum. Leaders need to be careful when using this technique so that we don’t come across as flippant or dismissive. Be curious about the situation to show a more supportive stance.

Benefits In and Out of the Workplace

There’s no doubt about it: our work lives greatly impact our personal lives. When leaders support their teams to have positive work experiences, they have happier, healthier lives outside of work. This benefits our organisations by reducing the amount of time off work from stress-related illness and also benefits each of us as individuals as we carry positive moods home with us. Imagine how much nicer it would be for our families and friends if we arrived home from work in a more positive mood than when we left. When we demand high-quality output from our colleagues, the very least we can do is give high-quality outcomes in return.