Positive Leadership: Why It’s so Uncommon, and How to Make it Work For You

In last week’s blog post we looked at an overview of positive leadership, its’ troubled history within organizations, and its’ less than ideal implementation in today’s teams.

“Positive leadership refers to 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 difficult to attain otherwise.”

– Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2013

This week we’ll be taking a closer look at the reasons why positive practices are so uncommon in organizations, and how to find the right balance of positive and negative feedback.

The Problem-Focused Outlook

Unfortunately, positive practices are truly rare in today’s businesses and organizations. Two key factors explain our natural resistance to them:

1. Physiologically speaking, our brains have a built-in negativity bias. We’re hardwired to pay more attention to issues that threaten our survival (negative trumps positive). Crises and problems dominate work agendas. Managers’ daily tasks necessitate solving problems.

2. Leadership pressures steal attention from positive practices, in spite of our best intentions. Successful leaders must override the tendency to focus on problems. Only then can they experience the high performance that positivity can unleash.

While positive executives are perceived to be better leaders, they’re nonetheless in the minority in today’s competitive business environment.

Finding the Right Feedback Ratio

A wave of research reveals that “soft”-sounding positive management practices – including conversations focused on dreams, strengths, and possibilities – motivate people to achieve higher performance levels. In fact, the more positive the message, the better the outcome.

But managers are charged with pointing out what’s not working and solving real problems – a mandate that presents a potentially frustrating leadership dilemma: How can you focus on the positive when continually forced to make corrections?

Richard Boyatzis, PhD, a professor of organizational behaviour at the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, offers a pragmatic solution: “You need the negative focus to survive, but a positive one to thrive. You need both, but in the right ratio.”

Let’s quantify this ratio. Effective leaders should provide 3-5 positive messages for every negative message they deliver. Your communication must skew heavily toward the positive, without sounding incongruent or inauthentic.

If you fail to “accentuate the positive” (to borrow a World War II-era song title), you remain stuck in negative feedback patterns that demotivate your staff.

Hopefully this week’s post gave you further insight into positive leadership and why we still haven’t seen much of it in our organizations. The power of positive leadership is incredible – leaders just need to go about implementing it in the right manner.

Are you working to become a more positive leader in your work and daily life? I’d love to hear how it’s going for you – you can reach me here or on LinkedIn.