Page 155 - Appreciative Leadership

128 Appreciative Leadership

on the job, and by people who smile and say hello as they pass you
on the street—all small acts of kindness that open people’s hearts and
inspire resonant actions.

Crossing over to the Positive:
It’s Your Choice

Appreciative Leadership is a choice—to live and work in the ener-
1
getically positive. Seeing, experiencing, and knowing the hardships
of the world, Appreciative Leadership chooses to be a life-affi rming
force for good, to discover and apply strengths and best practices, to

facilitate collective wisdom defining a better way, and to inspire hope
for the future.
Crossing over to the positive is a choice you make about how you
apply and use your strengths. Consider a knife and ask yourself, “Is

it positive or negative?” The answer lies not in the implicit nature of
the knife but rather in the way it is used. If it is used to harm another

person, its effect is negative. If it is used to slice and dice vegetables
and herbs and to prepare a healthy and delicious meal, its eff ects are
2
positive. So it is with human potential. Appreciative leaders choose to
apply both their own and others’ human potential in support of life, to
create better ways of living and working.

The choice to live and work in the positive influences what you

choose to see and nurture in yourself and others. The folk tale of “Two

Wolves” illustrates this lesson:

One evening an old Cherokee man told his grandson about
a battle that goes on inside people. He said, “My son, there
is a battle between two wolves inside us all. One is bad. It
is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance,
self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, and