We all have good streaks and bad streaks. Whether it is your business, your favorite sports teams, or just what is going on in your life.
 
When you are on a good streak, you seem to have it all; adulation, career opportunities, good deals, and when needed the benefit of the doubt.  It’s easy to feel great when everything is going your way, but once you face some setbacks and a bad streak sets in, life becomes a cycle of loss and failure, where you no longer seem to get the benefit of the doubt in anything.
 
A bad streak and losing does not make someone a loser, but what is the difference between an individual who has more bad streaks than good and someone who keeps their bad streaks short and extends good streaks?  What I both believe and have observed is that it is a question of confidence, of self-esteem, the conscious sense of accountability, collaboration and inspiration that gives some people substantially more control over their response and outcome.
 
Most CEOs, senior leadership, successful coaches and individuals, have the innate ability to choose how they deal with and accept a loss. These individuals will not allow failure to become a trend because they have the confidence and self-esteem to ensure that they will win the next time. So how does one build their confidence and self-esteem?  How do you lessen the damage when you hit a bad streak and change it around?
 
Confidence is the bridge between expectations and performance; between promises and results.  A good streak is created by positive actions, momentum and results; which further increases confidence.  Individuals who ¡°believe¡: they will win are most likely to put in the concerted effort to ensure victory.
 
Confidence is also a balance between arrogance ¡ª the failure to see flaws ¡ª and self-doubt.  Believing you will succeed and win is not arrogance. Acting confident, saying it, but not believing it, nor doing everything in your power to succeed, that is pure arrogance.  There is too little of former and far too much of the latter in business, sports and especially politics today.
 
Success leads to good streaks. Good streaks put people in control of their circumstances and brings rewards that only perpetuate more success.  Every good streak begins from a foundation of confidence. In business, it is the leadership, providing the resources and establishing a culture of performance and achievement.  This culture of success produces confidence at the following four levels:
 
1. Individual confidence: an emotional climate of high expectations.
2. Confidence in others: positive, supportive, team-oriented behavior.
3. Confidence in the system: organizational structures and routines reinforcing accountability, collaboration and innovation.
4. External confidence: customer adulation, sales/revenue growth and market recognition.
 
A word of caution at this point: A good streak is wonderful.  An extended good streak results from each of the four levels just mentioned as confidence feeds success. What makes an extended good streak even more dramatic is that it takes incredibly hard work.  Mediocrity, a bad streak, failure are all so much easier.  
 
Last week my column focused on goal setting and said:
 
°Successful people fail far more often than unsuccessful people. Successful people try more things, fall down, pick themselves up and try again. They try over and over again, before they achieve what they set out to achieve.¡
 
So if everyone has good and bad streaks, what is the difference between a confident individual with high self-esteem and one who is less confident?
 
During a bad streak a confident individual trusts their abilities to calm and focus them and pull them through. The less confident individual allows panic or haste to distract them, which adds pressure, prohibits good decision-making and prolongs a bad streak.
 
Even if you are a confident individual with a high self-esteem you can sometimes find yourself in surroundings (personal or professional), where you feel powerless.  When there are few coping mechanisms and little ability to turn the situation around, primitive self-protective behaviors will arise that are the polar opposites of what it takes to succeed like:
 
Communication decreases. People avoid unpleasant conversations about problems.
Criticism and blame increase. People do anything to avoid self-scrutiny.
Respect decreases. People feel surrounded by mediocrity.
Isolation increases. People don’t want to be reminded of failure by others.
Focus turns inward. People look out for their own interests.
Rifts widen and inequities grow. People hoard assets, play favorites, and exhibit rivalries.
Initiative decreases. People are paralyzed by anxiety.
Aspirations diminish. People look for life satisfaction elsewhere.
Negativity spreads. Contagious negativity reduces everyone’s mood.
 
Some personal and professional situations are terminally-ill.  All the confidence and self-esteem in the world will not turnaround a terminally-ill environment.  So if this situation applies to you and you feel like you are in a continual bad streak, the turnaround is 100% your responsibility.  If you are in a personal or professional turnaround then either take charge, become part of the leadership or look for the right leadership, because turning a bad streak to a good streak starts with leadership.
 
Turnarounds are not for the faint of heart or impatient and they have similar issues. These include:
 
Coming off a bad streak, the situation is always worse than anyone thinks.
Promises of change have been made before to no avail.
Those hailed as winners when they arrive can quickly become losers when they make unpopular decisions.
If victory is too easy, it might be too temporary.
Turnarounds run on several clocks that are not always in sync.
 
While each turnaround is different, they all start with leadership needing to make unpopular decisions about ugly situations that have been ignored or denied in the past. It’s next to impossible for that kind of clarity and effort to come from inside the bad streak. New leadership is required because they are better able to diagnosis the ills and the ugly environment if they have not been part of the problem.
 
What is especially critical in turnaround is the confidence of the leader and the confidence the leader instills in the people who are the team that must work to deliver performance. A confident turnaround leader’s agenda is daunting, with endless problems, unpopular decisions, and skeptics to convert. Leadership often proceeds unevenly and slowly. It takes minutes to destroy the confidence in an individual or culture, but forever to build it up. To satisfy people, it takes a combination of confident strokes and the belief¡ they will win and succeed.
 
There are three cornerstones of confidence that are needed to create a good streak.  The first cornerstone of confidence starts with accountability.  After accountability, the next major cornerstone of confidence is collaboration, followed closely by inspiring initiative and innovation.