How to Be a Positive Leader summary

What do you enjoy most about your work? Is it the pay? The office décor? Or something more profound? It should be the latter.

Both employees and organizations benefit when their work is perceived to be meaningful. Meaningful work has a positive outcome for other people outside the company, for example, by making them feel happy or fulfilled, or improving their quality of life. This type of work greatly increases the intrinsic motivation of an employee.

Life is full of negotiations. Whether it’s with our significant others, friends, colleagues or a traffic cop who wants to write us a ticket, we face negotiations every day.

In the professional realm it’s particularly important to master the art of negotiating, because it can have a significant impact on your career.

Can you think of a moment in your life when you felt particularly alive?

These moments are known as thriving, and they are often characterized by a sense of learning, growth and overall vitality.

When do you do your best work? For most people, the answer would be: “When I feel good about myself.” This is known as positive identity, and it helps people feel happier and more focused, which translates into better work.

So what makes people feel good about themselves?

In many workplaces, every employee is treated pretty much the same, whatever their background.

But because we’re all different and unique, it’s companies who let their employees craft their own jobs who tend to get the most out of their staff.

Some people think that for an employee to be successful in the corporate world, they need to be ruthless and highly driven.

But in fact one of the most important characteristics of a great employee is virtuousness – a quality often ignored by companies.

What did Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King all have in common? They were ethical leaders: they treated others in a just, caring and respectful way. What’s more, they also tried to ensure their followers did so too.

In business, ethical leaders tend to have a positive impact on their staff. Studies show that employees who consider their leaders to be ethical are more satisfied with their jobs and tend to perform better. One possible explanation is that ethical leadership enhances employees’ sense that their work is meaningful and “good.”

In the previous blinks, we’ve examined many factors that can help employees excel at what they do. But by far the most important prerequisite for human excellence is hope: a deep belief that both people and situations can change for the better.

Hope influences your emotions, thoughts and actions. When you’re hopeful, you feel more capable of reaching goals, and this in turn translates into confidence and action.

Considering how omnipresent change is in life, it’s astonishing how bad we are at managing it effectively.

This is especially true in organizations, where change often results in confusion and clashes between employees and leaders.