Six Foolproof Tips For Leaders To Develop A Positive Attitude (and maintain it)
“Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words. Keep your words positive because your words become your behavior. Keep your behavior positive because your behavior becomes your habits. Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values. Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny.” — Mahatma Gandhi
Attitude is everything. You must have heard this many times from your friends, family members, bosses, or managers. A lot has been written about the importance of a positive attitude in thousands of books, spoken to millions of people, and deeply ingrained in your minds.
You must be wondering why so much emphasis is placed on a “positive attitude”? Quite simply because it’s true and matters big time, especially when you own and operate a business.
When it comes to the workplace, the leaders are the ones their employees look up to for inspiration and guidance. In other words, leaders set the example and team members emulate their behavior and actions, but are you setting a positive example for them? Are your actions motivating them to rally around you and be a better version of themselves?
I’m not saying that a positive attitude requires you to give an hour-long motivational speech to your employees every day, always carry a clownish smile on your face and think that attitude alone will carry the day. You don’t have to live a stereotype because that’s difficult to do and won’t work anyway.
However, as a positive leader, you are supposed to remain hopeful and see the best in even the most difficult situations. You have to maintain your composure during tough times because if you panic then your behavior and actions can demoralize your team, even if you don’t intend to do so.
Positive leaders see every tough situation as an opportunity to prove their skills and capabilities to overcome any type of adversity and believe that difficulties are a medium to a greater end.
Let us now delve deeper into why having a positive mindset is important for you as a leader.
Why Positivity Is A Critical Leadership Trait
When discussing leadership qualities, people usually focus on vision, humility, accountability, empathy, and resilience. Undoubtedly, all these traits are important, but positivity is like a torch-bearer of all other leadership qualities.
A Leader’s Attitude Rubs Off On Employees — Strangely, today’s culture considers cynicism as a virtue, but it’s known to all that positive teams turn out to be the most productive teams. A leader’s character has a great effect on the team as well as the organization. A consistent positive attitude is good for your mental health, and it will have a striking influence on your team.
A Leader’s Encouragement Can Drive Employees — Employees are driven either through intimidation or motivation, but a true leader always chooses the latter. Appreciating good work and your positive enthusiasm can make your team members pour themselves into their work.
A Leader’s Positivity Creates Resilience — Good leaders’ response to misfortune is not to feel sorry for themselves but to find the good and move on. Obstacles and challenges will be there on the road to success, but positive leadership quickly rebounds from minor setbacks. When your team sees your resilient attitude, they feel more confident and hardy themselves.
A Leader’s Positive Persona Acts As A Magnet — A positive attitude works as a “magnet” in the sense that it attracts more positive-minded people to you. The aura of positive energy that you work with and reflect on others helps to build mutual trust between you and your team. They feel more confident to approach to share their ideas and concerns.
How Leaders Can Develop And Maintain A Positive Attitude
Pessimists have never changed the world for good; they make things worse for themselves and the people they are associated with. However, you don’t want to be categorized as a negative leader, do you?
Developing and maintaining a positive attitude is easier said than done, but if you earnestly implement the below-mentioned tips to your leadership style then it will make you a much stronger leader and change your life (and your employees) for the better.
Read on to know more about it.
1. Don’t Complain, Don’t Blame
A complaint is a desperate, frustrated attempt made to seek some help, somehow. But remember, when you’re complaining, you’re not leading. So, the next time you have a problem in hand, focus on solutions rather than fretting about it.
Good leaders don’t attack people, rather they attack problems. Your employees look at you for solutions during difficult times, so it’s your responsibility to guide them through and keep their morale high. Authentic leaders adjust their thinking and plan to change the circumstances around them.
2. Take Good Care Of Yourself Because No One Else Will
To be a strong leader, you’ll need to take good care of your physical and mental health. Constantly interacting with people daily can stress you, so it helps to step back sometimes and treat yourself like royalty.
What do you do to relax and unwind? Long drives, motorcycling, camping, movies, music, body massage? It can be that you prefer to stay in and just rest all day long. Do whatever makes you feel good and happy because achieving a healthy work-life balance will go a long way in enabling you to handle work-related stress in a better way.
“Keep track of project progress on the go with ProofHub’s mobile app. Sign up TODAY!”
3. Focus On Your Goals
No matter how tough the current situation is for you and your team, lead your team with optimism, and encourage them to strive for a positive future. Good leaders keep the team together during tough times so that they can celebrate success in good times.
Appreciate good work, work on shortcomings, and no matter how bad the situation is, you can always remind your team that they have the skills and capability to overcome it. Take every challenge as an opportunity to succeed because failure is not final.
4. Lead With Love
No, I am not talking about office romance here but having an empathic and personalized relationship with your employees. Negative leaders are often rude and warn their teams of facing dire consequences in the event something goes wrong, but that’s not the way it should be.
Love your team, respect each member for his/her unique personality and skills they bring to the table, without compromising on accountability. When employees feel loved and cared for, they are likely to put in more efforts wholeheartedly rather than working out of fear.
5. Learn To Delegate
I know many leaders are skeptical of delegating tasks to subordinates, but you should understand that you cannot do all things by yourself. When you delegate tasks, not only do you alleviate your workload but also show confidence in your employees’ skills and abilities.
You can use a feature-rich project management software with a built-in task management system to create and assign tasks, set their start and due dates to ensure a clear division of responsibilities at one place. You can keep track of project progress and visualize tasks on Kanban boards and manage dependencies between tasks using Gantt charts.
“Create, assign, and monitor tasks easily in one place with ProofHub. Switch NOW!”
6. Smile Even When You Don’t Want To!
I know this tip might sound silly, but we cannot overlook the importance of a genuine smile in the workplace and its impact on people leaders interact with. Studies have shown that smiling can make you feel more confident and upbeat because your body relates those muscle movements with feelings of joy and happiness.
Even when things go horribly wrong, a dose of humor can help to lighten the mood of both you and your team members. You can crack a joke or two, or share some funny incidents to relieve stress and release tension.
The Final Thought
Being a leader means you are responsible for your as well as your team’s performance, and the leader is as good as the team is. It’s not easy to handle work pressure and motivate different individuals in your team at the same time.
Positive leadership is about developing an optimistic attitude and embracing “never say die” spirit. Apart from making some crucial changes to your normal leadership style, embracing the right technology can help you and your team to stay on the same page through improved collaboration.
This is where you can consider choosing a feature-rich project management software like ProofHub. Communicate, collaborate, and manage projects easily from a single location at the most reasonable price and see how it helps you have ultimate control over projects and teams.
If you enjoyed reading this article:
Clap: so others can find it
Comment: if you have a question/suggestion you’d like to ask
Follow: ProofHub to read all the articles
