Dad said, “You’ve got to be an optimist. When your team can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, you have to be able to show it to them and convince them it’s not a train.”
Optimism is not a squishy, overly idealist characteristic. Optimism is actually a hard-core discipline. An optimist sees negative situations as temporary and surmountable, while seeing positive situations as permanent and sustainable.
I love what Henry David Thoreau said in his book Walden: “If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” That should be the vision statement of an optimist!
No vision or plan happens without obstacles and setbacks. The discipline of optimism requires that we are honest about those obstacles and continually ask the questions, “How can I look at this differently? What might be better on the other side of this setback, once I have moved through it? What lesson am I learning that I will be able to share once I’ve mastered it?”
Optimism allows a leader to stay committed to the vision when facing adversity. It requires believing in your team and knowing you can rise above the current obstacle and still succeed. An optimistic leader can help boost employee morale, enhance productivity and overcome setbacks just by believing in a successful eventual outcome.
When you believe there is always a route to success, it eliminates the fear of failure and challenges your team to find that route, even if it may end up looking different than you originally expected.
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