Hope: The Other Essential Leadership Skill
“I hope...” We say it to ourselves so often. It’s something we all crave, and need to survive and keep going (especially the last couple of years, jeez). So why does that word not come up more with leaders? And I’m not talking about, ‘I hope you’re not going to miss that deadline,’ or ‘I hope my team relationships are going to recover,’ or ‘I hope I’m cut out for leadership.’
Who inspires you?
Every one of our leaders should be making that list, but it’s sad how few do.
Most recently, we’ve seen hope embodied, like a shining beacon, in Ukraine’s President Zelensky. The world admires him for his incredible and admirable displays of now-iconic leadership – including potentially every employee of every leader in every company.
If the bar for great leadership wasn’t already clear within your organisation, Zelensky has very clearly set it.
How do your leaders match up? Because I can guarantee it’s a thought that has crossed every employee’s mind.
The past couple of years have been a real lesson in the importance of inspiring hope. Cracks between leaders and their employees are now chasms, and employee engagement is low, with over half (51%) disengaged, and 13% actively disengaged.
Because it’s part of the job, and one of the most essential soft leadership skills out there. It’s about bravery, thinking about others over yourself.
Hope is what separates great leaders from average ones. And I don’t think that has been so clear in the world’s mind for a long time.
Hope is not the same as optimism
Whereas optimism is an outlook and a point of view, hope is about linking thought process to actions and behaviour.
Research by positive psychologist Dr. Charles. R Snyder, author of the textbook Positive Psychology, has shown that hopeful people set more (and higher) goals, and are more successful at achieving them than those who demonstrate less hope.
Hope is about recognising that there are challenges ahead and that you’re in a bad situation, but holding onto the belief that by taking control of your actions, you can steer onto the correct path and secure a brighter future.
A leader isn’t simply a manager; every leader needs to be a coach – keeping those around them unified in that line of thinking, and focused and engaged with the larger vision.
A history of constant crises
Remember Obama’s campaign messages of Hope and Change in 2008, and Forward in 2012? In the face of broken corporate and financial infrastructure, he reignited America’s (and the world’s) faith in ourselves and in each other. He made us believe that we could make a better life for ourselves.
In her Harvard Business Review blog, Hope Is a Strategy (Well, Sort Of), Deborah Mills-Scofield explains that, “Hope is a critical part of achieving a strategy when based on what is possible; perhaps not highly probable, but possible. Hope is the belief that something is possible and probable, and the recognition that the degree of each is not necessarily equal. When hope is based on real-world experience, knowledge, and tangible and intangible data, it results in trust, which is necessary to implementing any strategy.”
Moving forward with hope
Leaders who are hopeful are also less likely to panic and fluster in the face of problems, because hope is a proactive way to think about those challenges. They can objectively analyse them, clearly identify the scale of them, and determine the impact of potential solutions.
How do your leaders fare? Does the flustering ring some bells? Does your leadership team need to learn how to instil hope?
When leaders ensure more effective communication with their employees, reward hard work and fresh ideas, provide constructive feedback and encouragement that is a two-way conversation and feeds into the leader’s and the company’s vision, employees will feel valuable and able to contribute to the future – both theirs and the company’s. They will find it easier to adopt that mindset of hope.
It means that when things do go wrong, teams don’t feel alone – they feel led. They feel inspired to think creatively and follow their own paths to solve problems and move forward. It means teams find increased courage and motivation to take charge of their goal-setting, and the determination to achieve those goals.
It means entire teams engaging on a deeper level with the idea of continuous personal development and leadership development, which will help them to feel even more capable in their roles.
One person can make a difference
I’m a real believer in manifesting. I think if you hope for something, and truly put yourself in the mindset of how it will feel once you’ve achieved it, it will come to you. That’s what leaders need to inspire in everyone around them.
This supports the idea that absolutely anyone has the power to be a leader, and to inspire hope. I’ve known people for whom that was their first taste of leadership – the feeling of having inspired hope in those around them, lifted team spirits, and helped people to discover their drive and passion again.
We’re seeing leaders not just in Zelensky, with his humble background, staying on the ground with his people, calling on those all around him to unite and hope and support each other, when Putin clearly imagined that he would flee at the start, and that the Ukraine people would quickly surrender.
We’re seeing leaders in other everyday heroes too. The woman who offered sunflower seeds to the Russian soldier, the soldier who detonated the bridge, every single Ukrainian person taking a stand to defend their loved ones and what is right… every single day these people are showing us the power of one person to make a real difference in the world.
Written by Michael
Michael Mauro is the founder of a forward-thinking organisation specialising in leadership, HR and employee development. With over a decade of global experience, Michael has become a leading voice on topics such as culture, inclusion, wellbeing, and the future of leadership.
