How you view people is how you will act as a leader

– You act how you view people.
– Leaders can become better at leading by changing their attitude towards people. See the potential, not the problems.

This article from “Thrive Global” is enlightening – and not surprising given my own learning from mindfulness in recent years. It’s about research that shows the way we “see” others affects the way we treat them – and to be better leaders (and people), we must learn to see others better. Here’s an excerpt:

I’ve carried this lesson with me in my work developing leaders in communities and organizations. I find that most underdeveloped potential, behavioral concerns, and performance issues aren’t “people problems” but “seeing problems.”

Writer, poet, and German statesman Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote, “The way you see people is the way you treat them, and the way you treat them is what they become.” If we want people to become better, we must learn to see people better.

And then here is another excerpt:

How we see people is how we treat them. How we treat them is who they become. Alternatively, if we see someone as “having potential,” we’ll treat that person as having possibilities. If we treat someone as having possibilities, we build self-worth. What do people with high self-worth do? Research finds they take more initiative, are more open to feedback, perform better, and are more resilient.