When facilitating one of our year-long leadership workshops, I’m guiding a group of ten strangers through a powerful and transformative learning experience. Our leadership workshop is structured well, with a comprehensive and well-designed conceptual framework. The concepts are clear and relatable. I bring 45 years of business and leadership experience to our workshops, and I am a skilled facilitator who asks good questions and knows how to move ideas around the room. 

But I think there is one critical asset I bring to our workshops that’s difficult to quantify, put on paper, or build into a conceptual framework, and that is the positive intention I bring to the process. 

I fully expect people in our workshops to show up well, do the work, and be honorable, trustworthy, and accountable.  

I fully expect to like each person, to find elements of their person that I admire, and to discover them as substantive and worthwhile human beings.  

I see each person as a gift, and people rarely let me down, so I find myself opening gifts all day. 

As leaders, our positive intention toward others is a powerful tool.

Enter each relationship, meeting, sales call, conversation, or unscheduled interaction with a positive intention and see what happens.

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash