INSIGHTS (on leadership/self-leadership)
France took home 64 medals in the summer 2024 Olympics, dramatically more than the 37 medals they averaged during the previous five summer Olympics. The difference? They were playing on “home turf,” in Paris. It’s a phenomenon you see repeatedly – the host country wins dramatically more medals then they normally do, playing with fervor in front of their country, cheered on by hundreds of thousands of passionate well-wishers.
How can you create the “Host Country Effect” for your team?
As I share in my new book, The Mentally Strong Leader, by acting like an epicenter of encouragement. This is where you role-model being supportive and looking to lift others up, by spreading positive feedback, optimism, and affirmation, along with well-informed, thoughtful, specific reasons for your positivity. The specificity gives your encouragement credibility, which makes it meaningful. For example, not only do you tell your IT person they did a good job, you give detail on the positive impact of their efforts, how it made you feel, what others said about it, how it delivered on some crucial company objectives, and why their effort classified as “above and beyond,” something to celebrate.
How else might you create the “Host Country Effect” to lift your team to their highest levels of achievement? I have clients currently undergoing an effort to replicate this phenomenon on their team. You can too – it starts with intention.
IMPERFECTIONS (a mistake many make)
We intuitively understand the importance of being confident. But too many leaders miss how important it is to intentionally show up as confident to their organization.
Steve Kerr, four-time champion coach of the Golden State Warriors basketball team and coach of the champion Olympic men’s basketball team (i.e. a man who knows a thing or two about leadership), says one of the single most important things for leaders to understand is that “your team needs to see you as confident. ”Anything less, and you’re capping your group’s potential.
After all, a team is never more confident than its leader.
The shared benefits of your confidence are astonishing. Confidence creates calm in crisis, lifts spirits, fuels resilience, and feeds perseverance. Surprising research from Carnegie Mellon even shows that projecting confidence is more effective for establishing trust than past performance.
So, you can be confident of the importance of showing up as confident to the troops.
IMPLEMENTATION (one research-backed strategy, tip, or tool)
Ever been on a team filled with sparring partners, but few true partners?
It’s exhausting. I’m talking about the people who exist to resist – always putting up roadblocks, raising objections, doubting, finding new ways to say “no.” The worst are the cynics who offer nothing but negativity. Here’s how to deal with their cynicism.
Challenge them. Cynics get their power when no one challenges their acidity. Their biting comments can seem smart in the absence of a countering force. Challenge their statements and invite them to be a part of the solution instead. If they can’t suggest a solution, they lose their power.
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