Powerful Leaders — Positive Psychology for Success

It’s a beautiful morning here in beautiful Victoria, British Columbia, and as I go for this morning stroll, I’ve been thinking about leadership and specifically, how is it that people become powerful and effective leaders? You know, all of us want some degree to which we can have greater influence over others, whether it’s work we do in the community, the influence we have over our spouse and children, or whether it’s in our own workplaces and we’re looking for leadership there. I have tips for you today that are truly revolutionary and so contrary to what we ordinarily think. So, stay tuned to this one to learn all about powerful leadership.

As a coach, public speaker, and best-selling author, I, Paul Krismer, teach topics just like this one all around the world. So, stay tuned and I’ll give you practical tools that you can use to make both yourself and those around you happier and more successful. So, generally speaking, we think of leadership as the power to influence others. It’s often hierarchical power, it’s structural, and then it’s also information sharing. The capacity to have information that others need and the ability to share it and to know it makes people powerful. That’s what the traditional literature says, and so that people who have that hierarchical authority can influence others, or have a lot of information, those folks should be the ones who are motivational and effective as leaders in their workplaces.

And it’s true, to an extent. Obviously, someone with hierarchical power gives assignments, determines what the fair pay rate should be, might have influence over safety, they also might be the people who kind of bring the team dynamics together, and all of that hierarchical authority obviously has some significant leadership potential. Similarly, people who have a lot of information, whether they’re getting it from their superiors or they’re having more conversation with people who are horizontally aligned with them across the organization, that ability to convey information to their workforce makes them powerful, right? So, these are the basic elements that we usually study, saying people who are effective with that hierarchical authority or effective with your use of information, those people motivate the workforce.

But it turns out, while true on the one hand, it is way less important than the degree to which they are positive energizers. Four times more influence in the workplace occurs from people who make others feel motivated. So, it’s not that they’re positive themselves, it’s the influence or the effect they have on the people who work with them. So, people who say, “Gee, I feel more energized,” or “I feel more vitality,” or “I’m higher motivated, I have higher motivation as an effect is an impact of having spoken to that leader,” those are the ones who are truly incredibly powerful. And this research is just shown over and over again by people like Kim Cameron and others, and they’re really showing that this is the capacity to get amazing impacts in the workplace. People who really energize their colleagues and their subordinates get better outcomes, they get higher quality, more productivity, a better team cohesion, more creativity and innovation, they even influence fewer accidents in the workplace.

So, this is all about how leaders who bring a lot of positive energy and influence others and get them pumped up and ready to do their best work, those are the ones who are the most powerful leaders. Contrary to where most of the research points to with respect to hierarchical power or information sharing. So, there’s your tip for today, it’s about the positive energy we bring, and that’s not by how pumped up we are personally, it’s how we make others feel. If you like this kind of content, please subscribe to my channel, you get a new video like this every Sunday morning. Like the video, share it with your friends and family, and I’ll see you next time around. Thanks for watching.