I recently got a gift from my coauthor and cofounder, Sherif.
It was a stuffed Eeyore. You know, Winnie-the-Pooh’s pal best known for being gloom personified:
It was a joking reference to my self-diagnosed Eeyore-ism in most areas of life, including business. I’ve long known about myself that I see the negative outcome as the most likely. When good stuff happens, I take it as a pleasant surprise.
I joke about being Eeyore often, but being the pessimist-in-chief is in fact a dangerous CEO failure mode.
If you share my general view of things, consider what happens when you convey that to your workforce (not to mention your customers, shareholders, board, the public, etc.).
Pessimism can be contagious. Your employees may take on your fatalistic attitude, and thereby zap any motivation to strive for big accomplishments. Why try if we’re going to fail anyway, right?
Employees may not want to trigger further negativity in you, and therefore sweep bad news under the rug. That always leads to much bigger issues down the road.
When an achievement is made, employees want recognition you won’t naturally give. Instead of celebrating, you’ll offer a doom-tinged view of things, and they will be (rightfully) resentful.
Eeyore CEOs tend to see themselves as merely realistic rather than pessimistic, but that’s not how it comes across.
In my leadership career, I’ve had to actively work on conveying positive energy to the team, getting people excited about future possibilities, and patting people on the back when they deserve it. Doing those things, even when they feel a little unnatural, has made me a better leader and CEO.
Of course, the Eeyore’s opposite (the cheerleader CEO, who we’ve discussed in a previous newsletter) can be just as detrimental.
As with all things CEO, your job is to find the fine balance—in this case, between sad-eyed negativity and shameless boosterism. I’ve found that “paranoid optimism” is a handy phrase for the attitude you want to strive for, regardless of which side you tend toward naturally.
—Joel