Remember the last time you felt blue at work and a peppy individual came along and said, “Cheer up!” I bet it wasn’t very helpful.
So, why do leaders continue to tell glum, stressed staff to just “Cheer up!”? Well, here are a few reasons I’ve said it to my own teams:
- I don’t have time for the problem. “Cheer up!” is shorthand for “I need you to feel better right now.”
- I don’t want to engage emotionally with them. “Cheer up!” translates as “I’m too busy for your negative feelings.”
- I’ll be honest, there are times when I’m just not interested. In this circumstance, “Cheer up!” might mean “Just do your work, please.”
In any of these instances, I was not being helpful.
Understanding Pessimism vs. Optimism
Pessimism is less productive, less engaged, less collaborative, and less innovative than optimism, as measured by the LOT-R scale and other instruments. According to research, pessimists typically are less resilient, more stressed, and far more likely to have absenteeism and health issues. And many agree that pessimism is contagious. Simply stated: pessimists bring down their colleagues.
Clearly, leaders are right to encourage optimism. In fact, research shows that optimism has a huge impact on resilience. Here’s a breakdown of traits:
Optimists:
- persist to achieve goals
- expect positive outcomes and has positive feelings
- are better at problem solving
- are better at conflict resolution
- are more engaged, and have better coping skills
- have better health and well-being
- have better networks and relationships.
Pessimists:
- give up more easily
- expect poor outcomes and have negative feelings
- make fewer attempts to solve problems
- are less constructive and exhibit conflict styles
- are more avoidant in coping
- have higher stress and worse health outcomes
- have fewer interpersonal connections.
Building Realistic Optimism
Because optimism is so valuable in helping teams cope with adversity and bounce back from hard times, what can I—as a leader—do to support its development?
Chances are you’re already more optimistic than your team. Organizational psychologists have repeatedly shown that, compared to their team members:
- leaders typically report lower levels of stress
- leaders typically report higher levels of optimism
- optimists are more likely to get promoted in the first place.
And here’s one more factor that I think Al Siebert expresses very well: “Most people with positive attitudes have a negative attitude about people with a negative attitude.”
As a result, as leaders we must be vigilant about the effect of our own optimism on our team.
Here’s the good news: We can truly help our teams build their optimistic attitudes and behaviors. More important, we already have tools to give us insights into our own optimism. For example:
- Personal control: How do I perceive my own control? Do I see future events as being within my control? Can I have an impact? Or am I a victim of events that are outside my control?
- Explanatory style: When bad things happen, how do I explain them to myself? Do I tell myself it’s all my fault, everything I do turns out badly, and it’s always going to be this way? Or do I say, “This will pass, tomorrow will be better, and other parts of my life are going well…”?
These tools (and others) can be used to develop realistic optimism in ourselves and others. They have been proven to make a solid, genuine, authentic difference. Here are three basic challenges leaders can take on to boost realistic optimism within our teams:
- Leader self-awareness. What optimism bias, beliefs, and attitudes do I bring to my own leadership? Is the effect of my optimism encouraging or discouraging to my team? Am I mindful of the impact my optimism is having?
- Listen for optimism. When my team faces hard times, what “talk track” do I hear from my team members—and am I even listening? Do I hear a realistic balance between factors they feel they can control or influence and factors beyond their scope or impact? Are there pessimistic team members who think the bad things that happen will go on forever and permeate everything we do?
- Lead for optimism. Once I’ve identified pessimistic thinking, do I challenge it? Do I invite team members to dispute their own negative thinking by suggesting that a bad event is instead temporary and specific? Do I help them avoid the pitfalls of rumination (chewing over past events) and catastrophizing (dwelling in the wreckage of the future)?
These challenges offer a preliminary glimpse into authentic resilience leadership. They are effective, practical, and proven steps toward supporting genuine realistic optimism in our teams.
Being a Resilient Leader
The resilient leader nurtures and supports the development of optimism in team members. Optimistic teams are far more resilient than pessimistic teams and far better at coping with adversity. When facing set-backs, optimistic teams are more likely to tap innovation, energy, and resourcefulness.
Your investment in building genuine optimism leadership skills will pay resilience dividends. More importantly, platitudes and clichés, such as telling the team to just “Cheer up!” simply don’t work at all.
