LEADERSHIP
LESSONS | Optimism
Applying the Principles
Military historian John Keegan, in his book The First World War,
comments about the war’s most horrific battle: “The Somme
(together with the battle of Ypres in July 1917, where 70,000
British were killed and 170,000 wounded) marked the end of
an age of vital optimism in British life that has never been
recovered.”
Gordon MacDonald, who pointed us to this quote, reflected,
“I found myself thinking about a society that had, for more than
a hundred years, enjoyed a wild run of vital optimism and then,
overnight, according to Keegan, lost it. And worse: never recov-
ered it. Think about it! One terrible battle with catastrophic losses
and the cultural momentum (centuries in the making) of a great
nation is arrested, dissipated.”
Optimism is not living in a fantasy world where nothing
tragic ever happens; vital optimism is a confidence that tragedy
is not the last word, that the best is yet to be. Optimism is being
able to acknowledge brutal realities and to point to an even greater
reality—that our experiences are not in vain, our responses are
not futile, and our efforts are going to be worthwhile.
Christian leaders like Billy Graham most often link this opti-
mism and hope to an abiding trust that history is going some-
where and that God, who specializes in redeeming flawed
situations, is powerfully directing it. But hope is also basic psy-
chology and biology.
Most of us have heard all our lives about positive attitudes and
how they lead to success. Books, conferences, and videos all
emphasize optimism. It’s easy to shrug it all off, but the leader
who aspires to high effectiveness incorporates the positive. Some-
times bringing hope to a dispirited group is the most important
thing a leader can do.
In studies of the brain, much has been learned recently about
how and why negative thinking drains us, but the positive energizes
Communicating Optimism and Hope