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Leadership Thought #318 – Be More Friendly

March 14, 2012

Free Full body cheerful young female customer sitting at round table and waitress with tray with teapot in cafe looking at each other Stock Photo

I still believe that acting in a friendly fashion gives you a boost in business and in life.  Just taking the time to acknowledge another person in a nice way makes a difference for them and for you.  It’s depressing how few people smile and say hello when you cross paths with them.  Basic common courtesies like saying “please” and “thank you” or holding open the door for the person behind you take minimal effort.  It takes more work not to act this way.    Every day you get to choose to make the world a little brighter or darker based on your attitude and actions.

The reality is that we must coexist with other people.  There may be some extreme introverts out there who try to minimize encountering others, but this is next to impossible to pull off.   About anything you need or do requires coming into some level of contact with another person.   In addition, anyone who aspires to a management or leadership position has no choice but to work on building productive relationships with their fellow employees.  In addition, there is no business model that is devoid of customers, so you need to figure out how to serve others and make them feel satisfied with the experience.

Life goes much more smoothly if you view part of the journey as building positive relationships along the way.  This doesn’t mean everyone becomes a close friend, but you can certainly leave most people with a positive feeling about their experience of you.  Admittedly, there are some individuals who are misanthropes and cranks and there is not much you can do to change their attitude, but I encourage you to counter this mindset with positive energy anyway.  You will also meet people with whom you don’t connect with for some reason or another and instead of succumbing to a negative energy vibe when this happens, choose to take the high road, and exit the interaction gracefully.

Thankfully, we all have friendly people in our lives.  The type of individual who just makes it easy and enjoyable to be around them.  They effortlessly seem to make us feel good about ourselves and our relationship with them.   They tend to be positive and optimistic people.  You ever notice how people just seem to flock to them?  Imagine how much different the world would be if more of us followed their lead.