Leaders need to be positive: Where are you focusing your energy and attention so that you can build and lead your perfect team?
The average-sized dictionary contains 31,460 words, but only around 5% of them- 1,705- are positive. Add to this the fact that around 18% of them- 5,890- are negative, and you start to understand how negativity dominates the lives of most people.
Companies that want to grow and scale need to build world-class teams made up of motivated, engaged people, working towards a common vision.
In this article, we will highlight how you, as a leader within your business, can start achieving that by refocusing your attention.
A conference in York:
Our founder was at a conference in York, where he overheard a group of people saying that “the secret is you have to be living, laughing and learning”.
The anecdote inspired him, and he expanded on it, so that when people asked how he was, he would answer with things like “happy, healthy, horny and holy” or “energetic, exciting, enthusiastic and extraordinary” rather than the usual “not too bad”.
He noticed that not only did other people’s attitudes change, but he was able to change his own state of mind and attitude too.
It was, in fact, the seed of an idea which culminated in his book, highlighting a new vocabulary to change your life – ‘The A-Z of positive thinking’.
Observe people’s behaviour:
Our founder was reminded of this learning some years later when he was on a walk with his son. After his son had a temper tantrum, our founder asked him to observe people as they continued walking together.
When they arrived at their destination, his son said that “unhappy people seem to radiate a zone of gloom around them which you don’t want to get close to, happy people just give off a wave of attraction and I found myself drawn to them, and neutral people were simply calm.”
Put simply, your energy, focus and mood impact the people around you- not just you.
If you want a perfect team, you need to look at yourself:
Continuing with that thought, one of the mantras for our company is “if we always think what we have always thought, we will always be what we have always been.”
With that in mind, if you keep focusing on the negatives, they get bigger. You have to break the pattern and look somewhere else if you are going to create something new.
If you want a perfect team, you need to look at yourself. If you are focusing on negativity and are in a place of blame, that will not support your team. In fact, it will actually rub off on them negatively.
A negative outlook was impacting this leader’s team (and his life):
To highlight the point we made above, let’s look at one of our previous articles, where we outlined the work we did with one of our first clients.
We highlighted that when our founder initially started working with him, he was in a bad place- both personally and professionally.
We also mentioned that he was often aggressive, on occasion would purposely bump into people that were not looking where they were going, and was not enjoying his job.
He was full of doom and gloom- his main focus was on negativity- and as a result, everything around him became negative- including his leadership style and his approach to his team and work.
It also spilled over into his personal life too. So much so that after our founder’s work with him, he received a card from the client’s children expressing their gratitude for ‘getting their dad back’.
Understanding your dominant brain and focusing your energy:
As we highlighted in one of our other articles, where we looked at the friction between an internal compliance officer and a team of traders, we all have three ways of processing information- three brains- with one brain dominating our approach to life.
We also highlighted that the compliance officer could only address and deal with the source of friction by understanding his ‘dominant brain’.
It is the same for all teams. As a leader, you can only impact your teams by understanding yourself and your dominant way of processing information.
Once you understand your characteristics, it will be easier to manage your energy and focus your attention in the right places.
Perfect teams take responsibility:
Building on the above, in another of our articles we mentioned that while there is no ‘I’ in team, in a perfect team there is a big ‘R’, and we highlighted how one of our clients transformed her struggling career by taking responsibility.
When our founder was first introduced to this client, she was struggling, particularly in her career, had very little direction, and was blaming external factors for her challenges.
Taking responsibility has ripple effects:
After realising that she needed to take responsibility, especially for where her energy and attention were both focused, she was able to change it and positively impacted her own life.
It also had a ripple effect, because as a divisional Chief Operating Officer (COO) for a large City organisation, she now impacts the lives of hundreds- possibly thousands- of team members within her organisation.
Where are you focusing your attention so that you can build and lead your perfect team?
Our founder Neil, and our team, have over thirty years of experience in executive development, and have worked with more than 6,760 business owners to unlock the potential within their teams.
To find out more about how you can build world-class teams made up of motivated, engaged people, here are two ways we can help you:
1) Attend our next executive seminar, where we will uncover how growing and scaling companies can manage the big squeeze of 2022.
2) Buy our book highlighting a new vocabulary to change your life– ‘The A-Z of positive thinking’
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