Good leaders are a ray of hope
Leaders must infuse an environment of hope within their given working space if they want the people they lead to remain motivated and energized. Napoleon Bonaparte, the man who needs no introduction, once said, “A leader is a dealer in hope.” James Kouzes and Barry Posner elaborated in The Leadership Challenge: “The climb to the top is arduous and long. People become exhausted, frustrated and disenchanted. They are often tempted to give up. Leaders encourage the heart of their constituents to carry on.”
I recently came across a miraculous study that was conducted by renowned psychologists at the Duke University. As a part of this study, they put rats into containers (people advocating animal rights please don’t take this in bad light) with water that was too deep to stand in and were also far enough from the top to prevent the rats from escaping. The rats had to either tread the water or swim to survive. In my search to locate the source of the document, I came across two different descriptions of the experimental set-up. At this point, I am unsure about the authenticity of this experiment (story). However, one cannot negate the fact that it serves as a good example to illustrate the core concern that I am dealing with in this piece. Moving on with the experiment, the researchers put one set of rats in the water and allowed them to swim until they drowned. This apparently took about 17 minutes. They then put another set of rats in the water and removed them in about 15 minutes and put them to rest. The second set of rats was then put back in the water again and they miraculously continued to swim for 36 hours. How did the researchers conclude? They concluded by putting forth the observation that when the rats had the hope of rescue, they continued to fight for survival much longer.
In today’s day and age when the dark concept of the status quo lures almost all leaders and probes them to look down upon their subordinates, it seems easier to threaten and push people around than to encourage them. It feels pointless to waste time in creating rewards for people and inspiring hope in them. The natural order of things tends to lean towards negativity. Creating a positive, hopeful environment takes endurance and honest work and focus. The benefit that comes out of the process is that people, like the rats in the experiment above, will hang on longer and work harder if they have hope for a brighter tomorrow and this hope will be born among these people by whose initiative? Of course that of the leader’s. Kill this hope and you will soon make your employees believe in fear and intimidation to drive their working and behavior at work.
“When you extinguish hope, you create desperation.”
- Abraham Lincoln.