When the idea for this post first occurred to me, it manifested as the question, “Are you running towards the light or away from the darkness?”

There’s just so much emphasis right now on the negative. Even with my clients—highly accomplished leaders—some weeks, it seems like nearly every conversation starts off with: oh, gosh, this went wrong… this is crappy… this is bad…we can’t get any traction on this…

My inclination when that happens is always the same: to listen but also to ask about the positive. “Can we talk about what’s going well or where you are making some progress?”

Last week, I was having a social breakfast with a few people and there was a moment in which it seemed like everyone was talking about how hard it is to be a parent and how hard it is to live up to your own expectations of what good parenting means. After 30 minutes of this, I asked, “What’s the other side? Where are you making progress?”

It helped. The conversation shifted; there was more lightness, and a bit more balance.

Yes, there are some real challenges out there. But for the vast majority of leaders, it’s a mixed bag. You are facing some significant obstacles, but your team is also making progress on numerous fronts.

It’s your role to set the tone, to own the culture.

It’s your job to decide when and what to celebrate.

Someone recently said to me, “Rocket science is easy; social science is hard.” He said it in the context that as a society, we haven’t figured out how to better engage talented individuals at work.

Don’t just celebrate the big wins. Also celebrate progress and improvements. I’m not saying to hand out trophies for effort, but it is all too easy to let hard work and solid thinking go unnoticed. The more you recognize and acknowledge the behaviors you want, the more those behaviors will propagate.