The Power of Positivity

Why being positive might energise your organisation!

Positivity is positive, right? Indeed, the research does paint a rosy picture but senior leaders often fail to tap into this positivity. This is a shame because it will almost certainly improve performance, well-being, and resilience of an organisation.

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Positive coffee break

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There have been a number of approaches and concepts that have risen over recent years that focus on the positive rather than the negative sides of situations.

The basic premise is that positivity generally energises more and encourages people to engage more than negativity. This positive psychology though is rarely portrayed in senior leadership positions. Not that some senior leaders aren’t positive, but their focus lies in other areas such as how to get things right, how to engage the organisation, how to get the strategy right, and the multitudes of questions that come in each day. Effectively senior leaders are then seen as guardians protecting the budget, the property, and the business, rather than icons of positivity.

First, also let’s understand what positivity means because this can mean different things to different people. And whether these can have an impact on business performance.

Optimism

This refers to have a generally positive outlook. See the positives, having a “glass half full approach”. Pessimists might see optimists as naïve but is this the case?

Well, there has been plenty of research into optimism and there is a lot of consensus. For example, two recent studies found that start-ups who were more optimistic were more resilient. This positive relationship between optimism and performance has been found in students, start-ups, healthcare, sports, and also found to impact ethics and trust. So, all in a pretty good thing.

However, there is a risk of taking this too far a study in 2015 by Tenney et al. titled “(Too) optimistic about optimism” noted that this can be too much of a good thing.

There are a number of obvious reasons when we think back to the biological and neurological mechanisms. Pessimism is negative and therefore also a threat-based mechanism. This therefore activates our stress system and as I reported here, it is precisely this low-level stress that can be detrimental over time. This leads to a drop in resilience but also in many other factors such as a decrease in the ability to learn.

Therefore, optimism will provide the body and brain with a healthier hormonal and neurotransmitter environment to be able to perform - and be in constant low stress states. Good for performance.

However, the down sides are that if you are optimistic in certain situations, you may not prepare well for the downsides and avoid the negative consequences. Performance can therefore be hijacked by negative outcomes if they do in fact materialise, which they inevitably do.

The old adage of “hope for the best and prepare for the worst” is true here. So, optimism should not override realism but rather provide a positive atmosphere within which individuals can engage with their work better, with lower stress, leading to better learning, and higher resilience.

Growth Mindset

The concept of a growth mindset would and will be worth a whole article to itself but for the purpose of this article let’s briefly summarise. A growth vs. a fixed mindset is a concept that was proposed by Caroline Dweck and gained popularity and a large following after the publication of her book Mindset in 2006.