Leadership - Be positive - issues and action
Be positive - issues and action
Issues or problems
Good leaders always view things in a positive light.
In order to possess and use any of the recognised attributes of being a good leader you must be positive.
If you are proactive or adaptable, for example, you need a positive outlook to get the most out of these attributes.
All projects will have problems and issues that need resolving. The leader may point out some of these but not without a potential solution.
Issues and problems are not seen as such for a leader. They become a source of gaining experience with the added possibility of discovering new opportunities.
In general being positive is about believing you will succeed no matter how large the obstacles appear to be.
It partly constitutes.
- Looking for opportunities and recognising the experiences gained.
- Improving your chance of success by not giving up, having a go and being better for the experience.
- Learning to know when it is time for action when you have carried out analysis as far as it can go.
It is not about.
- Taking a ‘chance’ and hoping that everything will turn out OK.
- Completely ignoring the problems and risks and hoping they will go away or come to nothing.
There are a few areas to concentrate on to improve positive behaviour.
Actions
Internal SWOT
The SWOT technique involves the analysis of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats that is normally reserved for project aims.
It can be adapted slightly to the way you consider any obstacle. Focus on your strengths don’t dwell on your weaknesses just try to improve them.
Deal with threats and try to minimise or eliminate them. Look for the potential opportunities in apparently negative situations.
Keep in control
It is very easy to transfer your own emotions on to others. If you happen to be in an angry mood it is entirely unfair to take it out on a team member. It is up to you to display Emotional Intelligence and put your own feelings on the back burner.
Pre-visualise
This technique is common amongst top sports people even if they are not aware they are using it. It involves visualising in your mind what will actually happen in practice when you take a course of action. If you are a golfer taking a putt you naturally believe that it will go in the hole.
If you don’t, you are unlikely to win many tournaments. Part of this will involve visualising the path of the ball, the speed on the green all the way to the hole.
In this way you are using your own experiences and your own brain to run various scenarios. When you are satisfied you pick a particular one and try the putt.
If it fails, you don’t worry about it but rather add the experience to your record of experiences. Carrying out this exercise improves your confidence.
You will actually begin to believe that every putt will go in. Unfortunately, they won’t all go in!
However, over a period of time your confidence rises considerably and your success rate will improve.
You need to be highly focussed on your goals.
Forget the past
This is basically saying don’t dwell on mistakes and worry over them This is often easier said than done. Actively plan for the future based upon your past experiences.
Progress
It is an easy matter to devise a table to monitor your feelings of success in particular areas.
The diagram shows a simple version which you can expand upon.