Opt for Optimism

There's a verse that says, "be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger." Stephen Covey says in Seven Habits of Highly Effective People to "seek first to understand, then to be understood." These are great points because we are basically selfish people and we think our ideas are best and want others to submit to our opinion or idea, eventhough we haven't listened well enough to know whether it is the best one or not. Listening is a great way to help people feel good about where they work and invest their time. Ask good questions and then shut up. "God gave us two ears, one mouth, use in proportion!"

There shouldn't be "negative" in an organization. It will kill the life of the organization. That doesn't mean you as a leader don't handle problems with people or situations that come up. It means that there is never negative comments about the personal performance of someone who is not involved in the situation who has the ability to help fix the problem. I have a couple of principles that I remind my staff about in regard to this. "If you're not part of the problem or part of the solution, stay out of it." "Talk only to the person who has the ability to fix the problem."

Oftentimes people talk about problems or a persons performance with everyone but who is really involved. That is a cancer that has very negative impact in an organizations ability to perform well.

Having a positive outlook on situations is always better than "the sky is falling" outlook. It helps us emotionally to better handle the negative situations that will come up. Our minds, conscious and sub-conscious, will be better equipped to working on the solutions to the problems. Being negative about there not being the possibilty of a good outcome kills hope.

When people feel like their ideas matter and are listened to they will be more prone to give their input. Andrew Carnegie said "I'd rather have a small percentage of a hundreds mens effort than one hundred percent of my own." If a leader thinks he has all or most of the solutions to problems on his own, he is sadly mistaken. A good leader is always willing to listen to others that have credibility.