Replay - Approach or Avoidance - It Comes Down to Your Personality

<p>During December and January we are replaying some of our most popular episodes from previous years. This week's replay is from 9th November 2019 and is titled Approach or Avoidance - It Comes Down to Your Personality.</p> <p> </p> <p class="p1"><strong>Summary</strong></p> <p class="p2"> </p> <p class="p3">A big part of our role as leaders is setting the emotional tone and culture for our teams. Whether consciously or not, we communicate our own bias towards the upside potential and action, or the bias towards risk and fear. This week we’re looking at approach and avoidance motivation, and what we can do to foster a more positive mindset for ourselves and others.</p> <p class="p2"> </p> <p class="p1"><strong>Transcript</strong></p> <p class="p2"> </p> <p class="p3">Hey there. Welcome to episode 59 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we’re looking at approach and avoidance motivation, and what we can do to foster a more positive mindset for ourselves and others.</p> <p class="p2"> </p> <p class="p3">Motivation can be divided into two main categories - avoidance and approach. This isn’t a new idea. In fact, Greek philosophers spoke about these two forms of motivation as far back as 400 BC. But research has demonstrated that our preference for one type of motivation over another may come down to our personality.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p> <p class="p2"> </p> <p class="p3">Avoidance motivation, as the name suggests, is about trying to avoid a negative outcome. Avoidance goals relating to health might include not eating unhealthy food or giving up smoking. These avoidance actions may indeed make me less unhealthy, but they probably won’t make me healthy. As numerous people have expressed it, the absence of disease is not health.</p> <p class="p2"> </p> <p class="p3">In contrast, approach motivation is about pursuing something positive - working towards a positive outcome or possibility. Approach goals relating to heal