Positive Leadership Pays Off

Consider this scenario: An executive walks into the office and has a brief exchange with the receptionist, pointing out problems with the previous day’s work. The executive then holds a staff meeting where the employees are criticised for poor performance or attitudes. Later that day, the executive has an unpleasant discussion with a customer who is complaining about the company’s service. By the end of the day, the executive’s negative: positive exchange ratio is significantly unbalanced.

What does this have to do with leadership, employee performance and ultimately, business results? Two words - positive psychology. The practice of psychology is part of the larger movement championed by psychologist Martin Seligman, the author of Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realise Your Potential for Lasting Fulfilment and Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life.

Research conducted by Seligman and others point to the effect of positive emotions on people, organisations and customers. Among other things, they emphasise the impact of positive attitudes and thinking, optimism and resilience as powerful forces that determine both happiness and success.

In the past decade, scientists have explored the impact positive to negative interaction ratios at work and in people’s personal lives. They found this ratio can be used to predict – with remarkable accuracy – everything from workplace performance to divorce.

This work begun with psychologist Dr. John Gottman’s exploration of positive to negative ratio’s in marriages. Using a 5:1 ratio, Gottman and his colleagues predicted whether 700 newlywed couples would stay together or divorce. He scored their positive and negative interactions in a 15-minute conversation between husband and wife. The follow-up 10 years later revealed he had predicted divorce with 94% accuracy.

So what is the optimal positive to negative ratio in organisations? A recent study by psychologist Barbara Fredrickson and mathematician Marcial Losada found that work teams with a ratio greater than 3:1 were significantly more productive than those with lower ratios. The research uncovered an upper limit of 13:1 at which productivity declined. They concluded that completely blind optimism and unrestrained positivism can actually be counterproductive.

However, Tom Rath, co-author of New York Times bestseller How Full Is Your Bucket: Positive Strategies for Life and Work,says managers and executives need not worry about breaking the upper limit. The levels of positive emotions in most firms are woefully inadequate.

When leaders display positive emotions, others take note, and more importantly, action. Positive leaders don’t sit back and wait for things to improve. Instead, they are always trying to catch excellence in action. They call attention to what is right, rather than looking for things that are not working or need to be fixed. The raises the organisation’s positive ratio and its productivity.

Positive leaders raise the flow of positive emotions, not just because it’s the nice thing to do or to be liked. They are less concerned with what they can get out of their employees than they are with looking for opportunities to invest in their employees. They understand the degree of positive leadership can significantly affect their company’s bottom line.