Lead With A Positive Attitude

When you think of yourself, do you think of yourself as a positive leader? Or do you relate more to Eeyore from Winnie The Pooh?

Eeyore is a lovable but pessimistic and gloomy friend of Winnie The Pooh.

Nothing seems to go right for him. He’s always seeing the downside of life. And, his thought-life continues to bring himself and those around him down, down, down.

Woman sitting on a rock looking at the mountains

Photo by Denys Neoczhai

You might hear Eeyore say:

But Pooh… the Hundred Acre Woods are always changing. I just can’t keep up. Huff…

Eeyore brings negativity to everything. Even the beauty of nature. He can’t seem to break out of the funk.

Sadly, many leaders are like Eeyore. They bring a constant sense of negativity to their office and their team.

The Problem With A Negative Leader

What happens when a leader is constantly negative? They bring down the whole team. Their negativity spills over to Sally and Bob and Chaz.

As the negativity seeps into the other three team members, the team takes a dark turn. They no longer see a bright and positive future for the organization. They only see doom and gloom.

The leader multiples and more Eeyores appear!

This is the problem with a negative leader. A negative leader breeds more negativity into the organization. Dare I say, they create a culture of negativity.

I know I don’t want a culture of negativity. My guess is you don’t either.

Lead With A Positive Attitude

We’ve identified a couple of issues. The first is a leader brings his attitude to work. The second is his attitude spills over to his team. And, the last is that the attitude a leader brings to work is the cultural attitude his team will adopt.

What can be done about this?

The solution is both simple and complex. Difficult and easy…

To change a negative culture, the leader has to lead with a positive attitude.

Jon Gordon, in his great book The Positive Dog, tells the story of two dogs. One dog is positive and optimistic. He sees himself being adopted out of the shelter. The other dog is negative and pessimistic. He doesn’t see a way out.

Whether you’re the positive dog or the negative dog, Gordon’s story reinforces something we all know. We can turn our attitudes around. We can go from being a negative leader to a positive leader.

Today, I want to challenge you to examine how you lead and come to work. Do you come to work as a down and out, pessimistic, and negative leader?

If you do, choose today to feed yourself with positivity. Look for great books you can read to improve your attitude. Find someone who will be a good friend and call you out on your negativity. Speak positivity into your life and the situations you’re facing.

When you begin to feed your positive dog, you will begin to become a more positive leader. A more positive leader breeds more positive team members.

You can do this. I believe in you.

To help you to lead with positivity, I’ve included some inspirational images below to remind you to be positive.

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