One of the very basic and key requirements for effective leadership is the ability to keep people and organizations focused on those things they can control and not allow the noncontrollables to affect this focus.

While always important, this direction and discipline takes on new meaning when dealing with difficult times. Successfully managing this focus can spell the difference between survival and failure with the subsequent effects on employee families and their security.

Battle tested managers will tell you that one of their keys to success in navigating difficult times is their ability to stay positive. Recognizing their inherent capacity and requirement for multiplication, they know two things.

First, while a good attitude does not guarantee success, a bad one does guarantee failure. Second, with all the negative news going around, people need to feel positive about coming to work. The formula is really pretty simple: a good attitude is contagious, positive people perform better, and we need everyone performing better if we are going to get through this; therefore, I the manager am responsible for being the catalyst for the good attitude.

Words used to express the need for personal positivity are easy to write. But how realistic is it to expect that proverbial happy face from managers/owners who are dealing with declining margins, looming interest payments, increasing medical expenses, their kids needing braces, not to mention getting a flat tire on the way to work in the morning?

I would suggest that this expectation is totally unreasonable. But what is not an unreasonable expectation is the ability to compartmentalize the problems and not allow them to be distractions to the organization.

Successful managers have ways of doing this. One approach is to devise a set of daily measurable goals and keep the focus on progress towards these metrics. Concurrent with these goals has to be the celebration of their achievement.

People and organizations feed off success and every opportunity has to be taken to highlight these “we” victories. Another approach involves a conscious effort to increase “face time” with employees.

This face time is utilized to directly bolster people's confidence in the company and gently challenge them to contribute their ideas on how things might be improve.

Companywide meetings also seem to be an effective means of dealing with negative apprehension. Often one brave employee will voice a concern that many others are silently harboring, and just getting this issue out on the table is a huge stress reliever.

Not one of these ideas by itself will prove to be the panacea for all of your business challenges. But successful entrepreneurs know that the only magic bullets are innovation and execution. And they also know that their personal positive attitude is the foundation for effective leadership that allows innovation and execution to flourish.

John F. Riddell Jr., director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Growth-Hamilton County, writes each Tuesday about entrepreneurs and their impact on companies and the marketplace. Submit comments to his attention by writing to Business Editor John Vass Jr., Chattanooga Times Free Press, P.O. Box 1447, Chattanooga, TN 37401-1447, or by e-mailing him at business@timesfreepress.com