Optimism in leadership is a prerequisite to resilience in complex business environments. Optimism is the ability of a person to look at things with a positive perception. Optimism promotes the idea that only good things will prevail. An optimistic person takes problems as a challenge rather than a predicament. Future of a person is somewhat dependent on your perception. Optimism will tend to make you believe in making impossibilities possible. But unrealistic optimism makes people ignore negative but visible signs of occurrence of some problem in the future. Unrealistic optimism might let you believe that all will be well in the end when the reality is far from the perception of the optimistic person. The optimistic or pessimistic attitude is unsurprisingly ingrained in the beliefs of an individual about the world. Beliefs of an optimistic individual make them canter their attentions towards positive analysis of situations and innovate methods to gain maximum benefit from the current situation rather than wailing about what is not available. A pessimist individual can never be as effective and as better leader as an optimist individual.
Optimism in Leadership
Optimism in leadership assists leaders and organizations in envisioning new horizons and formulating plans to achieve them. Optimism cultivates the resolve and determination to deal with uncertain and problematic situation and failures. They make the leaders treat failures as lessons for the future projects. They learn the lesson and look towards the future with a new resolve. Optimism results in boosting the confidence and passion to work. On the other hand pessimistic attitude in case of failures results in loss of confidence and motivation to achieve. Optimistic attitude of a leader of motivates and simulates other people in situations of failure or change. Ayesha believes that optimistic leader facilitates other people to conquer the problems and avoid situations that can affect and limit their performance. Optimism is the utmost concern of the leaders. They can deal with unfavorable and difficult and exceed in their field with realistic optimism. Leaders believe that their perception of work and situations can change the results. It is true; the attitude of a leader in an organization greatly effects the attitude of other employees and people. If the leader thinks that failure is a setback, this will significantly affect the morale of the employees. If a leader accepts failure in good spirit and takes it as a lesson learned, people around him will be motivated and will work with more enthusiasm in the future. It is their perception that reflects through the perception of employees working under them
- Carver, C. S., Scheier, M. F. & Segerstrom, S. C. 2010, ‘Optimism’, Clinical Psychology Review.
- Harari, O. 2002, The leadership secrets of Colin Powell, 1st ed. ed, McGraw-Hill, New York ; London.