You’ve probably heard of the famous situation regarding how you view the amount of liquid in a glass. It is traditionally said that a pessimist sees the glass as half empty, while an optimist views that same glass as half full. Obviously, on a factual basis both are correct, but perspective is critical.
Author and educator Palmer Parker, was quoted as saying, “A leader is a person who has an unusual degree of power to project on other people his shadow or his light.” Your behavior and attitude has a strong effect on your staff and your volunteers. Let’s focus on that famous glass for a second.
Imagine the impact if you convince your team that the glass is half empty. This can easily have unintended consequences. It sets up a scarcity mentality. People will protect what “little” they have and not trust others. There will be a lack of cooperation and the environment might even become competitive.
Conversely, if the glass is seen as half full, it may lead to satiety. We have enough, we don’t need to do anymore. There can be a false sense of security; the glass will never be empty. It can also lead to less motivation and effort.
Now, what if the team is told that the glass is half full, but it can be better, and they can make it better. The glass can and should be completely full. You will help them to understand and support them so that this becomes the reality.
In the last case you are going beyond optimism and demonstrating Positive Leadership. This is a relatively new area in leadership development. It derives from the positive psychology field and much of it is based on the work of Professor Kim Cameron at the University of Michigan.
There is an excellent blog by Marcella Bremer about this topic on the OCAI website. https://www.ocai-online.com/blog/positive-leadership-why-its-crucial-for-organizational-change. She defines positive leadership as having an open eye for “positive possibilities.” In this mindset, you “enjoy the challenge to perform beyond expectations” to live up to your greatest potential.
She contrasts that to the “normal mindset” that we often find in church settings -there is a problem so let’s fix the problem so we can get back to normal. Research consistently shows that positive leaders get better performance from the teams in a healthier environment. There is increased productivity, the culture is one of trust and this promotes a willingness to change and become better.
You may feel that there is no need for change and that everything is fine as it is. While that may be true it seems unlikely that everything is perfect and there is no room to improve. Yes, the glass may be half full but really look at it again. Perhaps it is quite likely that it can hold a lot more.
We will continue to develop this concept a bit more in our next blog. We will look at ways to change your perspective so that you can positively impact your team and your working environment.