Top Five Leadership Principles-Positivity

This week I’m distilling wisdom regarding my top five leadership principles. Today, I’m on the fourth principle. Simply put, this is positivity. I call Jon Gordon the godfather of positivity. He’s authored so many books about the subject, it’s hard to keep them all straight. I first came across his books in the late 2000’s when I was having a lunch conversation with Coach Mark Richt (former UGA football coach). He referenced a book titled The Energy Bus, and specifically something he called energy vampires. Although I’d never heard the term before, I knew exactly what he was talking about. More importantly, I knew exactly who he was talking about. There was one specific staff person who came to mind, and few staff people on the team I was leading who were well on their way to becoming vampires. Most importantly, I needed to evaluate my own leadership to make sure I wasn’t sucking the life from people or my team. That’s why positivity is so valuable. It adds life and vibrancy to your life and to the people you lead.

It’s easy to think that positivity is all rainbows and sunshine, but it’s not. It’s easy to think that positivity doesn’t deal with reality, but that’s not accurate either. Positivity is a deliberate choice and a set of actions. Positivity includes, but is not limited, to these top 5 traits:

1. Vision-To stay positive at a personal level, one must have personal vision. To stay positive at a team/organizational level, there must be shared vision. I have a personal vision statement that keeps me calibrated and often calls me back to center. This same principle applies to teams and organizations. A true vision statement can keep teams focused and moving forward in the same direction, with proper alignment. Remember, without vision, people cast off constraint.
2. Communication-Without proper communication, negativity and rumors can fill the void. One of my greatest failures in leadership over the years is not properly communicating to the proper people. Not everyone needs to know everything at every moment, but more often than not, the more you communicate to the people you lead, the better. This is a hard lesson to learn, and trust me, you’d rather learn it from others than from yourself.
3. Confrontation-Negativity must be confronted. Energy vampires must not be tolerated. Without confrontation, negativity will breed, grow, and ultimately destroy a healthy team culture. The hope is that by confronting it, you can transform it. However, if that doesn’t work, you must remove it.
4. Relationships-Relationships are critical to positivity among teams because they foster unity. As people recognize a caring, service-oriented leader, they’re more willing to follow example and do that for one another. This naturally pulls teams together.
5. Grit-This is the ability to work for a long time towards a goal. This is the ability to hang through tough times. For me, this is assisted by my #1 leadership mantra: There’s always a solution, and God’s solution is always good (Romans 8:28).

Confront your own negativity. Transform it. Then, you’ll see that you transform others!

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