Countering someone’s negativity with your positivity doesn’t work because it’sargumentative. People don’t like to be emotionally contradicted and if you try to convince them that they shouldn’t feel something, they’ll only feel it more stubbornly. And if you’re a leader trying to be positive, it comes off even worse because you’ll appear out of touch and aloof to the reality that people are experiencing.
The other instinctive approach — confronting someone’s negativity with your own negativity — doesn’t work because it’s additive. Your negative reaction to their negative reaction simply adds fuel to the fire. Negativity breeds negativity.
So how can you turn around negativity?
Read all about it on HBR.org...
Related articles
- How to Respond to Negativity (blogs.hbr.org)
- ARE YOU A NEGATIVE or POSITIVE? (coalitionofpositiveenergy.com)
