What Positive Leadership Is and Isn't

I'm big on definitions. After so many years consulting and teaching, I've often run into the situation where two people are having a disagreement about something they haven't clearly defined. My favorite story is about a client, a courier company. The Senior VP and the dispatcher were having a rather heated discussion that seemed to go around in circles. I got involved to see if I could help. They were arguing about the company "Guarantee." While the VP was speaking (loudly - for some reason she thought that made her point clearer) about the guarantee they made to the customer, the dispatcher was speaking practically about the fact that international shipping times could not really be "guaranteed" since weather and other factors really determined when a parcel would arrive.

It was interesting to watch that while they each stayed in their own "box" of thinking they couldn't agree, but once I was able to explain that they were not actually talking about the same thing - it was easy for them to move on.

So before we keep delving into Positive Spillover, which relies on Positive Leadership, I want to be clear about a few foundational definitions.

“What IS Positive Leadership? That's a question I get asked a lot.

I usually answer by telling what it isn’t. “It isn’t the opposite of Negative Leadership.” In fact it’s an intentional style of leadership.

It’s primarily derived from the “evidence based” findings of the science of “Positive Psychology” Twenty years ago I got hooked on studying the fascinating findings of what has been called the “Science of Happiness”.

Dr. Martin Seligman (the Founding Father of the science) was looking for people around the world who he could train to take his work (which was at the time was called “Authentic Happiness”) out into their worlds with the end result of raising the level of happiness and well-being of the planet. I’m one of the 850 people he trained as “Authentic Happiness Coaches.”

While that might sound a little new-agey, it’s actually a good idea based solidly in science.

Positive emotions have such a profound impact on the human system (and the organizational system) that anyone who believes that they can ignore the deliberate creation of positive emotions (called building “Positive Capacity”) in the creation of employee and customer loyalty today is missing out on the most powerful, cost effective and rewarding tool that exists.

Positive leaders build the capacity for experiencing more positive emotions at work. In fact, they are “Positive Energizers.”

Shaun Achor, author of “The Happiness Advantage” and former Harvard Professor says that “Happiness is the single greatest competitive advantage in the modern economy” and that as a result of this happiness every business outcome improves. The late Tony Hsieh, the former CEO of billion dollar Zappos, built an empire on the simple positive psychology principles that he translated into “passion, purpose and the positivity” that leads to profits. Positive Leadership explores and adopts the appropriate practices of “Positive Deviation”. What are we already doing right?

As Positive Leaders, we search inside and outside a company for pockets of success – for people and places where extraordinary things are happening, people that are doing things right with great success. We study, we analyze based on what we know about our own culture, we discuss, we experiment, and we stay open to what the new sciences are teaching us and where we are already “positively deviant” ourselves. ????

Almost daily in the field of Neuroscience we are learning something new and fabulous about the workings of the human brain. In the last twenty years we have learned more about the functioning human brain (due to the fMRI- the functional MRI machine) than we ever knew. We can see what's going on in there!!

We now know that the brain is “plastic” – able to change and grow well into our old age. We also know that customer loyalty is closer to customer “love” based on where it shows up in the brain. New methods abound for creating new positive habits and letting of the old ones as we build new neural pathways.

We’ve discovered that “neurons that fire together wire together” and use that information to create positive habits of leadership and relationship. Positive Leadership is based on two kinds of value. (I call that Value 2.) It is driven from the core values the company and the leader hold and the focus on creating value for the customers - internal and external.

What are your values? How do you live them? What value do create as a leader? Are you adding to the positivity of the planet? Are you creating a workplace where happiness lives?

Positive leaders examine how they live their values and how they walk their talk. Positive leaders look for ways to talk about the values – usually by telling stories – every day in many different activities. Positive Customer Focused Leaders are also focused on creating value for customers – internal and external. They are always asking themselves “How can I create value?” and “How did I create value today?”

They are always focusing attention on the creation of value by asking, “How have you created value today?” and then patiently listening and coaching until people understand the role they play in the overall success of the company. When every person in the company is focused on value creation the customer feels it!

Positive Leadership is authentic. It’s real. You don’t fake it until you make it. You examine who you are, what your values are and how you really want to show up in the world. You practice it daily with intention.

If at first it feels a little funny, that’s okay. Change does usually take a little time.

Positive Leadership comes from the heart. That’s not something I learned from a teacher or a book, it’s something I learned from being in the business community for over three decades. The best leaders have a quality of heart that makes them good listeners, good learners and good teachers.

They lack the kind of egos that focus on their needs and so are open to understanding the needs of others. The best leaders are humble. I have a lot more to say about Positive Leadership and how it helps build strong relationships with internal and external customers, but for now perhaps this has given you an idea of what Positive Leadership is – and Isn’t. If you’d like to know more about how you can become a “Positive Energizer” please check out the E-Course Now. Www.PositiveEnergizer.com

Lead with your heart. Learn from Science!?

And as always I'm going to encourage you to pass along this newsletter to 3 friends or colleagues and encourage them to pass it along - you can be part of creating the Positive Spillover Effect!

JoAnna

Live it, love it and spread it around!