Are you a ‘catch people doing something right’ leader? 

It’s a very powerful mindset and way of being… one that unfortunately often seems to get lost in our busy, task-focused-need-things-done-yesterday world, where we seem to focus more on what went wrong than what went right.

Our brains are wired to notice the ‘negative’ stuff – unusual differences, abnormalities, pattern changes, differences from the norm.

When something doesn’t look right, the brain’s interpretation is usually “look out, pay attention! There’s a potential threat to us and hence our survival” 5 times as much circuitry in our brains is dedicated to detecting threat.

We’re very good at detecting ‘the bad stuff’ - and that the negative stuff has a much bigger impact on us as our brains feel it potentially impacts our survival. The brain has a way more powerful ‘look out for the wrong stuff’ bias than a ‘look for the good stuff’ lens.

As a result of all this, ‘the good stuff’ can slip by without being particularly noticed - as that’s not what the brain needs to pay most attention to.

The impact of this is that the good work & behaviour is often taken for granted because that’s what we expect people ‘should’ be doing. The ‘bad’ behaviour and mistakes activate potential ‘threat’ states in us, so we focus on [fixing] those instead.

If people keep telling us how to fix what we don’t do well what happens? Yes, of course, we become disengaged. We don’t feel good.

It all becomes a threat to our brains. It activates our fight/flight/freeze responses and we try to fight it or avoid/run away from it. We feel annoyed. Upset. Not appreciated. Undervalued. Not good enough. If it keeps happening, it can have far reaching personal implications on our mental health.

Conversely, when we receive positive feedback about what we do well we get a big hit of feel-good neuro-chemicals like dopamine, serotonin, oxytocins, etc. These neuro chemicals make us feel good…and hence want to do more of those things. This especially applies when feedback is specific about the actual behaviours and things we’ve done and we can distinctively identify those things.

People feel happier, more motivated. They will then think clearer and will do better work.

Those feel-good chemicals also reinforce and deepen positive neural learning pathways in our brains, and turn positive learning and behaviours into better habits.

And if you can use a Coaching Leadership style to get people to come to their own conclusions about what they did well and you as a leader reinforce that, then you get even better engagement and results.

So, make “catching people doing something right” a part of your daily thinking. Make it your personal leadership mantra…leadership that applies to self, the people around you, your boss, your internal and external clients, not just the people who report to you.

The Challenge: every day for 3 weeks, catch different people doing at least 3 things right per day! Give them specific feedback around it. See what happens…Look for the good & see the change.