Why the Future Belongs to Tough-Minded Optimists
Harvard Business Review by Bill Taylor
Unease is rippling through financial markets, and a sense of anxiety has overtaken society. In the United States, the presidential campaign has devolved into a frenzy of personal insults and unhinged behaviour. Technology may be heading toward self-driving cars and genomics-inspired medicine, but most people believe the country is headed in the wrong direction. In times like these, even for leaders committed to building a more prosperous future for their organizations, it’s easy to surrender to pessimism.
“The future is not shaped by people who don’t really believe in the future,” Gardner said. Rather, “it is created by highly motivated people, by enthusiasts, by men and women who want something very much or believe very much.” The best leaders have all sorts of skills and use all kinds of techniques, he observed, but there is no substitute “for the lift of spirit and heightened performance that comes from strong motivation.”
As I think about the leaders I’ve studied, those who are winning big in tough and demanding fields, what strikes me is that they’ve developed compelling answers to four questions that get to the heart of what lifts their spirits and heightens their performance, what rallies others to help them succeed. Wrestling with these questions might make you more optimistic about the future and more motivated to be tough-minded in the face of doubters and cynics: