Why The World Needs a New “Positive” Style of Leadership to Tackle Today’s Problems

Millions of people are demanding a different way of work. Leaders have an opportunity to embrace a new model of leadership – which we call “positive leadership.” Today’s workplace demands a new approach to leadership – a style that is more human-focused, collaborative, creative, and positive.

With over twenty-five years of research and thousands of employee assessments, Chak Fu-Lam, PhD, and I have developed a new concept of leadership – “positive leadership” – that offers a more hopeful path forward. If you’re seeing signs of burnout and low morale, if your company culture needs healing, or if you want to bring out the best in the people on your team, positive leadership can be the right step forward for your organization.

What is positive leadership?

Positive leadership is about leading with positive feedback, positive energy, positive outcomes, and positive cultures. Positive leadership is about bringing out the best in people and empowering them to succeed. Here’s what we mean.

• Positive feedback: Instead of criticizing people or nitpicking what they do wrong, try to focus the feedback on what they do right. People react better to positive feedback.
• Positive energy: Positive leaders bring positive energy – optimism, collaboration, forward momentum, and high emotional intelligence. And they reward positive energy by focusing their attention and praise on their employees who have the most positive attitudes and energizing personalities – instead of getting bogged down by trying to improve the performance of people who have negative attitudes.
• Positive outcomes: Positive leadership emphasizes positive outcomes. Instead of “loss framing” (warning employees that they must change their work process or improve their productivity, “or else”), positive leadership uses “gain framing.” With gain framing, managers show employees the positive results that they can expect to see from adapting a new work process or recommended behavior.
• Positive cultures: When you use positive feedback, create positive energy, and focus on positive outcomes, the forces of positivity will begin to take over your culture. It’s like hitting cruise control or autopilot. This doesn’t happen overnight, but at its best, positive leadership can create a positive ecosystem throughout your organization.

Practical steps to adopt positive leadership on your team

Positive leadership is not about unrealistic attitudes. It’s about getting real-world results. We’ve identified three key steps to bring positive leadership to life at your organization – by building better relationships and creating a more positive culture.

Step 1 – Find your “rowers:” As part of our research into positive leadership, we’ve identified a framework of the three basic personality types at every organization – Rower, Sitter, DrillerSM.

• “Rowers” are the star players who work proactively to “row the boat” forward, who bring positive energy and high emotional intelligence, and who tend to have positive attitudes and strong relationship-building skills.
• “Sitters” are people who don’t “rock the boat” – they’re not rowing too hard, they’re not star players like the rowers, but the sitters can be influenced and inspired in the right direction.
• “Drillers” are, unfortunately, people with inherently negative personalities – they complain, they manipulate, and they use backchanneling, gossiping, and undermining tactics to “drill” a hole in your “boat.”

Doing personality assessments can help you find your rowers, by getting insight into each individual’s inherent personality. Once you know who your “rowers,” “sitters,” and “drillers” are, it’s time for the next step.

Step 2 – Get rid of your “drillers:” Too many managers make the mistake of focusing their time and attention on the team members who complain the most – the “drillers.” Leaders should not reward bad attitudes by paying attention to them. And don’t damage your team’s culture by promoting drillers to management – even if the drillers are technically skilled at their jobs.

Ignore them. Drillers will not change – their negative personalities are not the right fit for your team’s new culture of positive leadership, and they need to be managed out. By ignoring drillers, some will leave the organization – and the others (with proper documentation) can be terminated. Getting drillers off your team will open new opportunities for positive leadership and creating a positive culture when you implement the next step.

Step 3 – Reward your “rowers” and the “sitters” will follow: Higher-performing people with positive attitudes (rowers) often get ignored by their leaders. Why? Because leaders wrongly assume that the rowers are happy with their jobs, content with their role, and don’t need attention or praise. This is a mistake! Rowers who feel ignored will eventually get frustrated and leave your organization – especially if they see “drillers” with bad attitudes getting all the face time from leaders instead.

Get the negative people out and focus on the positives. This will help you create a positive work environment where you focus on what everyone is doing right and empower your people to tap into their nature of positivity. Positive leadership is about unleashing positive energy on your team, and helping people with innate positive personality traits express themselves and elevate the performance of the people around them.

Written by Paul Fayad.

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