The following guest article is submitted by Tim Rahschulte, CEO of the Professional Development Academy and chief architect of the County Master Certificate In High Performance Leadership. 

It is summer 2021. We have faced the challenges of a global pandemic for over a year. The fight is not over, but signs of improvement are evident. Thinking about the past and forecasting what’s next can be overwhelming. Simply saying this experience has been unprecedented is an understatement.

While the past year has been like no other on record, it spotlighted the need for great leadership. As you prepare to reach the next level of normalcy, how have you done as a leader? How have the leaders in your county and on your team done? Has the experience brought you closer together? Are you now better prepared for the next challenge to come your way? As a leader that is what you are trying to achieve – overcome challenges on your way to reaching a goal while developing individuals, your team, and the culture of everyone involved so that even more can be endured and achieved. It is your leadership approach that can make average, good; good, great; and engender a sense of meaning and purpose in our work. Are you accomplishing such results? Is there room for improvement? No doubt, “Yes!” to both questions.

People want truly exceptional leaders, especially in times of great change. You can be that leader. This article is a start of a series to help you and your team lead in times of great change. It starts with mindset.

The power of mindset is more than viewing the glass half-full rather than half-empty. It is more than painting a rosy outlook on the reality of our challenges. Mindset is an attitude. It is the initiating force anyone leverages to build something new, reengineer something to be better, or to bring about a change in things. Our mindset initiates a sense of possibility from which our actions follow. Therefore, our mindset serves as the foundation of our results. Successful leaders have an unwaveringly positive mindset when it comes to what can be accomplished. General Colin Powell explains it this way: Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier. This brings up an important effect of mindset: it has a multiplying effect on those around us. Whether negative or positive, your mindset multiplies as it influences others. To be sure, the opposite of a positive mindset has the same effect.

Think over the past year. Have you displayed perpetual optimism?

Make the choice to be positive. Have an “it can be done” attitude, which is another piece of leadership advice from General Powell. Your mindset is the root cause of your results; it is the foundation of your success.

What do you and your team have planned for the rest of this year, the next year, and beyond? What is your mindset when you think about the goals you aim to accomplish and the challenges you will face? Whatever the goals and whatever the challenges, know this: It can be done! You can make it so.