Where do You Keep Your Glass?

Everyday, hundreds of emails pass through my inbox.  Many of those emails are comments or questions that come through the ICAHN list serv. I’m always astounded by how many issues you all are trying to resolve on a daily basis. Crazy! Earlier this week, ICAHN’s Nancy Allen and Pat Schou hosted a Nurse Peer Group meeting.  Much of the call revolved around complications that nursing is dealing with due to regulatory changes. It can be pretty daunting at times. Sensing this, Pat gave a little pep talk at the end of the meeting, closing with these words, “Let your glass be half full and meet the challenges.”

What great advice. “Let your glass be half full.”  In healthcare we are often hit with challenges we don’t like and it’s easier to be pessimistic and angry then to be a positive problem solver, but what does anger and pessimism accomplish? Intentionally making a choice to meet challenges with positivity is hard but it will have an impact on your well-being and on how you relate to your team.

Don't Fill the Glass to Full or to Empty

Pat’s comment also got me thinking how we never say, “I’m a glass full person,” or “I’m a glass empty person.” Adil Malia wrote in a Human Capitol blog post that leadership is about keeping the glass from getting too full or too empty. The idea here is that leadership is a balancing act, and the sweet spot is the glass filled right at the middle.  A full glass, he explains, takes away the ambition, the fight, and the enthusiasm, while a half glass keeps your team sharp and energetic. According to Malia, “The half-full glass keeps people happy, bonded, and engaged. The half-empty part builds your team’s PHE factors (passion, hope and energy) to fire their enthusiasm.”

Maybe we all need to be on the balancing point just a little bit. An interesting study done in 2019 found individuals who saw their glass as almost full (super optimistic) were more likely to suffer from delusions of success rather than actual success. These people tended to be procrastinators who overestimated their abilities to get things done. Over optimism can be a real pitfall for leaders who make decisions based on an optimistic fallacy rather than a rational analysis.

Pushing Through Pessimism

The same study found that 48% of self-identified “half-empties” didn’t think of themselves as pessimistic, but rather saw themselves as people who were motivated by the idea that the glass would fill through steady, careful, work and analysis. I like this idea of always trying to fill your glass. It is the drained glass that is the real problem. Pessimistic leaders are seen as critical and judgmental, and their poor attitudes can lead to unproductive teams.

So there, my friends, is the challenge: To not overflow or become drained, but to be happy you have a glass! I go back to Pat’s idea of “letting” that glass be half full. It’s here that you can start to see the silver linings. It’s also here where you make an impact on your team. Pessimism drags your team down and before you know it no one is up for the challenge.  As hard as it is some days, keeping your glass half full will make you happier and healthier and will help you more easily tackle the challenges you face.  That’s how I see it this week from where I sit.