How Positive Leadership Helps Grow an Organization

Positivity as a leadership skill is not easily learned, even through experience. If you can make it a daily practice for yourself and your team, you’ll see how it can grow your organization exponentially over time.

What makes a positive leader? In short, positive leadership entails building a company or leading a project with a seamless flow of communication, openness to feedback, and clear direction. In the age of the Great Resignation and as post-pandemic sees workers dragging their feet back to the workplace, positive leadership is the antidote to a lackluster workforce. The good news is that you can become a positive leader regardless of personality, background, age, level, or circumstances. It applies to every team, business, organization, and market type.

However, positive leadership should not be misconstrued as a cop-out from accountability. It does not work without the ability to set agreed-upon clear expectations, which seamlessly enables ownership and responsibility. The ultimate goal of positive leadership is to realize that you are transferring skills that develop your team (which then accounts for engagement and retention), creating a positive feedback loop and sense of accomplishment.

The Impact of Positive Leadership

Leadership is people following you, Not just the CEO but at the C-suite and every level. Good leaders know their team members strengths and weaknesses. The process of discovering this is by encouraging open and consistent communication. Good communication requires clarity so that there is less frustration, and over time, there is less time wasted on instructions or giving tasks to someone who doesn’t have the skillset for the goal.

With each milestone given, less guidance is a need, and more trust is built. When you trust that you’re being heard and what you’re saying is being considered, employees have no problem bringing concerns or issues to the leader for guidance. This level of communication reinforced by positive leadership extends even to clients or customers. Clients will respect and respond well when you, as a company or brand, can take ownership of something they should be aware of before bringing it up.

People will feel valued, heard, and respected on both ends, significantly increasing retention and engagement. The long-lasting impact of positive leadership permeates a company’s culture, growth, and reputation.

3 Ways to Become a Positive Leader

1. Remind teams of how their work matters within the organization’s purpose.
2. Direct individuals to success during projects and career growth.
3. Acknowledge accomplishments and mistakes as learning opportunities.

Psychologist and consultant Donna M. Genett’s book on delegation, If You Want It Done Right, You Don’t Have to Do It Yourself! is an excellent guide on navigating these three principles with the tasks of getting quality work from your teams. When everyone understands the vision, communicates expectations, and puts touchpoints in place for accountability, projects run smoothly. Positive leadership is modeling, facilitating, and purposefully influencing healthy emotions that encourage team members and employees to excel in their work.

If you’re reading this as an aspiring team lead, then know that this kind of leadership behavior can also start from below. In other words, if you request the check-ins with your project owner or ask to clarify the goals and expectations, you’ll be putting good practices into effect, setting yourself up for success, and demonstrating leadership qualities. Positive leadership evokes a sense of ownership that drives the team to go the extra mile to achieve set goals. The opposite is micromanaging, which erodes human agency in stimulating effectiveness, agility, and productivity.

When engaged with work with a clear sense of purpose, people tend to stay at their jobs to grow their skills further and climb the ranks. In the age of the Great Resignation, this is especially important. Imagine you’re in a rowboat with everyone in perfect sync. The resulting glide is infinitely preferable to rowing against each other or in circles – that’s the power of positive leadership.

Coach4Execs Creates Positive Leaders.

Get in touch if you want to see a powerful change in your team development and leadership abilities. Backed by nearly twenty years of experience, Coach4Execs has the insights to share through our 1-on-1 Executive Coaching and Leadership Team Development services. Furthermore, the VISTAGE CEO Membership program offers a venue where fellow CEOs gather to collaborate and learn how to create and nurture the highest possible performance.

Reach out today for a consultation and see how easy it is to become the leader you want to be.

Georganne Goldblum,
CEO of Coach4Execs