15 Reasons Positive Leaders Seem Negative
Negative leaders look in the mirror and see someone who cares.
There are “good” reasons for negativity.
You’re negative because…
- Some babies come out smiling and some come like Eeyore. It’s not an excuse, but you were born with a disposition.
- Improving other people’s work makes you feel smart, powerful, and superior.
- Nothing’s good enough when your belly is growling.
- Experience sees potential problems that novices don’t imagine. (There’s a reason we don’t do it that way.)
- You finish everything you start so you nitpick plans that don’t make sense. A person who loves to check things off their list won’t put something on their list that might not get checked off.
- Helplessness makes you pessimistic. When you feel you can’t change things, you lose heart.
- Constant nagging, nitpicking, and fault-finding are depressing.
- Incompetence drives you crazy. If they can’t do their job, why are they around?
- You make mountains out of mole hills. When everything is important, you’re bound for negativity.
- Resentment – hanging on to offenses – drains you.
- Power gives you permission to be grumpy.
- You need sleep. Overwork, stress, and fatigue drag you toward the abyss.
- Disappointed expectation makes you irritable.
- Stupid people…*#!^#!!
- Disappointment with yourself spills on others.
Successful leaders manage the impact of their presence.
10 ways to move toward positive leadership:
- Receive gratitude with gratitude.
- Leverage negativity in very small doses.
- Explore options without sounding like a know-it-all.
- Decide what you really want and choose actions that get you there. If you want your team to fail, complain constantly and nitpick their work.
- Schedule down-time.
- Schedule gratitude walk-abouts.
- Show respect for other people’s ideas.
- Eat healthy and take a walk.
- Let people learn from failure.
- Get a positivity-partner who can kick you in the pants when you’re negative.
Bonus: Ask a positive person how they do it?
What makes positive people go negative?
How might negative leaders move toward positivity?
What makes positive people go negative? They have negative self-images. They don’t value themselves. They magnify all their mistakes and deficiencies.
How might negative leaders move toward positivity? Start by working on the inside. What are your strengths–unique qualities? What are your key accomplishments. What makes you special?
A POSITIVE SELF IMAGE is more likely to see the positive aspects of each person and situation.
Thanks Paul. Carol Dweck’s book Mindset comes to mind. It’s easy to beat our self down. The real question is what are we learning.
Link to Mindset: https://amzn.to/3aBV8K9
The moment of inversion from positive attitude/projection to negative happens when we see ourselves (individually or as a group) as
Victims.
Once we adopt a worldview of being victimized, we lose (healthy) perspective of our own influence on our own circumstances, and dwell more on what’s wrong and ill than what’s right and good.
Misery loves enablers (much easier for most people around us); joy gratifies empowerers (people who can truly think critically without losing their humanity).
Leaders find a way of dealing with what’s wrong in a dynamic without sacrificing what’s right in it;
And that’s to transcend the existing
(which simply makes the wrongs moot,
and therefore not worthy of any more energy)
rather than simply dwell in it.
Thanks rurbane. Your comment spoke to me. So powerful. It’s so easy to circle the black hole.
Think critically without losing humanity. 🙂
I agree! Every moment offers a new opportunity to pursue better…or something else. Those who pursue better are constructive and those who don’t are destructive. In fact, doesn’t this whole topic center around self-esteem, and when it’s adversely affected, negative people react destructively, and positive people react constructively? So it’s more about the reaction, than the initial action/circumstances…something to think about….
i beleive it is a leader’s level of self confidence that can make them appear negative. My observatins have been that as new managers grow and develop their skills, their self confidence in handling new situations, or voicing dffering pinions also grows, and that appears more “positive”. Someoen can have a psoitve self image, but not the confidence in sharing what they may feel strongly about. #’s 3, 4, 9 & 10 speak to that. Positive people who “go negative” may do so because their voice/self confidence has been adveresly impacted in some way, cuasing them to regress instead of opening dialogue to move throgh and forward.
Thanks DL. So you might go negative if you speak up and get smacked down. Yup.
Of course ‘negative’ is in the eyes of the beholder…what might seem negative to some people might be seen as positive to others. There are lines people cross that are certainly negative/destructive, but as for ‘appearing’ negative, that’s all on the perceiver. I see every moment offering a new opportunity to pursue something better, except when I don’t…and when I don’t, it’s all on me…not the other person. Sure, some people are harder to deal with, but with the ‘right’ frame of mine, it just means they offer an even bigger opportunity to pursue something better! What do you think?
Let people learn from failure. This really does work but it’s best you test it on tasks or issues that are small and can be adjusted thru the failure as necessary.
Sage advice, Roger. Some failures are too costly to let happen. Also, don’t think of letting people fail as passive. Intervene by giving people an opportunity to reflect. Don’t let them continue to smash their heads against the wall.
Let’s define positive and negative as constructive and destructive…and watch the whole conversation turn. I’m one of those people often perceived as negative, who’s had to work hard at avoiding it for years, but that’s because I’m typically focused more on the task than the people, and when I work with people who are focused on the same, we get along just fine. It’s the people who turn their focus onto themselves that start to see me differently…and they are the ones I have to adjust to…to slow things down and make them feel better about themselves, before we can move on to the task at hand. If that’s required, then slowing things down is constructive, and plowing forward is destructive…but what’s the most constructive thing? I believe it’s helping people learn how to separate tasks from people…unless the task is all about a person…then it requires both.
How a message is delivered can greatly affect if it’s taken positively or negatively. One of the best ways to foster positivity is to keep lines of communication open, so that conversations are taken for face-value and there is not worry about things being left unsaid. This can be seen in examples such as constructive criticism and editing draft work. If two individuals have a comprehensive, open conversation about editing a rough draft, where both opinions are valued and heard, it will be a much more positive experience than if one person used a red pen to markup an entire project without any positive feedback, or without any openings of thoughts or feedbacks.
One of my favorite quotes is, if someone asks how you are doing, you respond “I’m doing good! If I wasn’t, nobody would want to hear that anyway.” This saying has some truths to it. While it is important for someone to be able to voice their thoughts openly and without fear of bullying, there is a truth in that we all are not interested in hearing the complaints of every other person in world. Especially if during small talk or around the water cooler at a job.
For me to stay positive, I remember that even the worst scenarios are a learning experience, which is an innately positive thing. I use the example of my job, as a nurse, if a patient dies, and their family is able to learn something new about themselves or others, then that is the best experience I can give someone. This does not negate the negative experience, but at least gives hope that all experiences can have at least one positive aspect.
Thanks Dan.
Something that came to mind for me that makes people go negative is when they feel “jaded.” This is really a product of many of the things you mentioned. Exhaustion, experience, nitpicking, incompetence, etc. can lead to this feeling. I have seen this turn very positive people completely the opposite way. A great example of this is medical residency training, where becoming jaded is almost like an initiation. While there you might work 40+ hours in a row, take care of very challenging problems, get lied to frequently by people, and through it all you can lose touch with the importance of the work. On top of that, your colleagues are constantly nitpicking every decision/order (rightfully so). It is an exhausting but necessary experience. During this training we could watch interns, so excited and full of positivity, go negative as the weight of the experience compounds on them. Before the end it all many people come back towards the positive side, but some remain negative for the rest of their careers. This leads to a whole pool of leaders in the field who are negative!
Negative leaders can move toward positivity by taking care of themselves. If they are unhealthy, exhausted, and have a low self-image, they will most likely be negative. Paul Thornton mentioned this above and I think he is right on track.