The environment that our staff and ourselves are living in seems to be spiralling into greater and greater negativity.  Fuel increases, wars, inflation, price increases, load shedding etc etc.  The flood of negative news feels suffocating, overwhelming, hopeless and depressing. 

The importance of leading positively in this complicated environment is critical to maintain productivity and deliver results.

How do you stay positive and lead impactfully in the negative environment?

Let’s explore the importance of authentic positivity.  A key risk is to fake being positive.    “Fakeness” immediately impacts staff trust and safety.  Staff don’t need superficial positivity.  They need a “real, I acknowledge that you are going through a tough time, and we are going to find a solution together” positivity.  We call this authentic positivity. 

How can leaders’ step into authentic positivity that teams trust and can depend on? 

• Recognise what is outside of your control.  Is it within your control to change fuel increases, wars, inflation, price increases, load shedding?  Unless you are a major world leader, it is not

• Accept that you don’t have control.  Immediately you accept what is outside of your control, the body begins to recover from the stress caused by negativity and returns to a neutral state where problem solving happens. 

• Now, identify what you do have control over related to the negative events. This step supports you to connect with your personal power and develop plans that are positive and constructive.  Examples could be, amending your budget or finding cost saving opportunities. 

• Now implement your plans to take back as much control as possible in areas where you authentically have control.  Intentionally choose to focus on what can be positively actioned and celebrate the steps you take. 

• When you are authentically positive, implement these steps with your team to support them to be positive.  Create opportunities for them to collaborate and solve their problems creatively.  Through working together, they access innovation and creativity in ways that leaders could not have considered.  Would you have thought of car pooling or setting up a stokvel? 

When we choose to focus on what we have control over, our positivity and solution finding improves.  A team that is positive and innovative is more productive.