The Power of Hope: Optimistically Realistic Leadership

We are hearing from a lot of our clients and colleagues that it is difficult to find things to be optimistic about these days. Many are still dealing with the lingering effects of the pandemic in a host of ways. We continue to face challenging market conditions and an uncertain geopolitical climate. Many organisations are facing constraints and restructuring their workforces, with these decisions and the communication of employee redundancies weighing heavily on the hearts and minds of the leaders and teams we support. In Australia, this is currently compounded by the pressures related to our fiscal year-end and we are seeing energy levels depleting similar to the pre-holiday crunch we typically experience in November/December each year.? Our research and consulting experience suggest that optimism is a critical leadership trait, perhaps precisely for these reasons. Employees are searching for hope about the future and looking to their leaders to be honest and authentic, yet optimistic and hopeful to help guide them through these increasingly complex (and for some, potentially threatening) times.??

This HBR article? makes the case for optimistic leadership, outlining the results of a multi-year research project in a hospital system that found that in the midst of a setback or challenging time, leaders should make concerted efforts to actively encourage positivity. ?

The study examined various positive psychology and cultural interventions including increased recognition and praise from managers, team-based conscious acts of kindness and gratitude exercises. Results found that: ?

• Prior to experiencing the intervention, 23% of team members expressed a high level of optimism in their workplace. Following their involvement in the positive psychology culture training, this figure rose to 40% (measured six weeks after the intervention). ?
• Despite undergoing significant organisational changes, the proportion of respondents reporting happiness at work increased from 43% to 62%. ?
• The frequency of individuals experiencing burnout "often" decreased from 11% to 6%.?

Examining the opposing psychological state, this HBR article warns of the dangers of cynicism at an individual and organisational level, citing links between cynicism and burnout. The article points specifically to workplace cynicism, which the author argues stems not from inherent beliefs of the individuals in question, but rather as a consequence of the workplace environment, likely as a type of coping mechanism meant to insulate from the excesses of a culture that drains energy. The research pin-points the very real cost of cynicism (financially, emotionally and psychologically for individuals, teams and organisations) in the form of decreased job performance, decreased trust in colleagues, higher turnover and lower earning power.??

Over the past 15 years, we have had multiple opportunities to meet former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi and hear her thoughts on leadership, including the need to be tough-minded, while also “optimistically realistic.” Throughout her career, she has spoken about the importance of CEOs and senior leaders having colleagues and teams with the ability to pitch visionary ideas filled with purpose and aspiration and to aim to deliver on audacious goals, while also staying grounded in what is pragmatically possible within the organisational context and parameters.?? In interviews and fireside chats around the globe, she has described the balance to be made between aspiration, overconfidence and pessimism, stating “If your boss is gloomy, that is demotivating. But you do not want a hopelessly over-ambitious boss either.” The description of optimistically realistic leadership has stayed with us throughout the years as one example of the many balancing acts leaders face.?

?More recently, across a range of “Future of Leadership” Forums in partnership with The Growth Faculty, the Thrive Advisory team and our clients have had the incredible opportunity to meet President Barack Obama in Australia and hear him speaking passionately about his life, legacy, leadership, lessons learned and the mindset and leadership he believes is critical for our future holistically. ??

Hope was a key theme that ran through his life and leadership stories and he implored each of us to personally fight cynicism as we seek to drive the change we seek in our lives, organisations and the world more broadly.??

?When describing his decision to select “A Promised Land” as the title of his latest book, President Obama spoke about several themes and threads. In addition to biblical references, he described the expression as a “touchstone for the African American experience and for the Civil Rights movement” and discussed the famous speech Dr. King gave before his assassination and what it meant to him personally. Citing Dr. King’s quotes “I've been to the Mountaintop” and “I have seen the Promised Land”, President Obama shared that he was seeking to evoke and express:?

• A sense of his deep faith and hope in America and its future??
• A sense of his deep faith and hope for the world more broadly??
• A deep faith in humanity?
• An image of humanity being on a journey to a better tomorrow that will undoubtedly bring challenges (akin to Dr. King’s acknowledgment that “We’ve got some difficult days ahead”)?
• The role we can each play in shaping and reaching that “tomorrow”, with the recognition that we might contribute to that future state without personally experiencing it.?

While acknowledging the impact of a range of geo-political changes and challenges we are facing around the globe including the climate crisis, President Obama spoke of the hope in humanity he holds and the faith and optimism he has in the values, intent and leadership of our younger generations. The Former President and FLOTUS, Michelle Obama are devoting significant energy to youth outreach and support to deliver on the vision and purpose of The Obama Foundation: to inspire, empower, and connect people to change their world.???

In one of our favourite quotes from the events he shared that “Younger generations won’t be perfect. They will make mistakes, just like we did, but I really trust them. I trust their hearts.”???

In the weeks since these events, we have been sifting through our notes, recounting how his stories resonated with us personally and collectively in quite profound ways and reflecting on the innumerable lessons we learned.? One of the most powerful being our reflections on how remarkable it is for President Obama to maintain the levels of faith, hope, trust and optimism that he expresses.? If a leader with 8+ years of unparalleled access (to what we can assume included the darkest parts of humanity and unspeakable cruelty) can maintain his level of hope, surely each of us can at least seek to do the same in our day-to-day personal and professional lives??

Unfortunately, as this article points out, despite its corrosive effects, cynicism is on the rise. It cites statistics from the annual Edelman Trust Barometer. In 2022 nearly 60% of those surveyed across 27 countries said their default is to distrust others, suggesting we have work to do individually and collectively to restore trust, faith and hope in whatever way we can, without judging others for their dips in hope given the challenges we collectively face.??

If you are asking yourself what you can do as a leader to combat an encroaching culture of cynicism and bring optimistic realism to your team and organisation, Stanford University psychologist Jamil Zak, offers the following strategies:?

• Role model trust: demonstrating your faith in your team encourages them to step up in line with your expectations (economists call this ‘earned trust’)?
• Develop anti-cynicism behaviours by embedding concepts like trust and empathy into development programs to combat cynicism?
• Reward collaborative behaviour to counteract the mistrust that can emerge from zero-sum game thinking (and presumably an individualistic approach) by focusing on task-interdependence and team-level outcomes and rewards.??

?If after all this research and evidence you are convinced of the case for optimism in leadership or life more broadly, but are worried about your personal ability to maintain an optimistically realistic or hopeful stance, this resource may be of use.? A recent episode of the podcast Hidden Brain explores how our fundamental beliefs about the world shape our reality.??

Jeremy Clifton, a psychologist who has been studying primal world beliefs explains how contrary to what we may think, it is not our experiences that shape our fundamental beliefs about the world, but rather our beliefs that fundamentally shape the world we see and experience. It is a subtle nuance with vast implications and reinforces the importance of being aware of your own underlying beliefs and biases.???

Clifton asserts that with consistent and concerted effort, people can actually shift their underlying beliefs; for example going from seeing the world as a fundamentally dangerous place, to a basically safe one. Focusing in on the primal beliefs that you feel might feed your cynicism can actually help you to overcome it.??

?Like any change or journey, the road to being more optimistic may be lumpy and bumpy with a few twists and turns (and perhaps some backward steps) but we can all commit to taking the time to reflect on our aspiration and take the first step.??

?What will your first step be??