As a small business owner, you’re not just “the boss.” You’re also the leader, the person employees, vendors, customers, and prospects look to for guidance, support, and confidence. And being a leader is easier than you think. It begins with a positive, “can-do” attitude that your business delivers what it promises, and can achieve any goal.

This is called “success thinking,” and it’s found across all successful enterprises because the entrepreneurs made it contagious among their teams. They emphasize long-term potential over short-term thinking. They learn to innovate rather than hesitate, and shun the status quo as they seek to spark new interest and enthusiasm inside the business.

When you focus on the collective success of your business as a whole—not an individual person, project or product—you can accelerate success by identifying a few profitable activities and making them happen ever more flawlessly and quickly.

One way to spread success thinking is by encouraging communication across your team. Generally, those around you need more information in order to feel successful. Let them know where you think the business needs to go, the problems it faces and what keeps you up at night.  Ask their advice about what you are doing right, what hurts and what needs fixing. That way, everyone has a bigger stake in your success. What’s more they become more inspired to find new, better ways of doing things as well.

Positive thinking breeds confidence, which should always be encouraged. But don’t become blinded by it. Writing in American Express’s OPEN Forum, entrepreneurial consultant and author Mike Michalowicz says small businesses often set goals, then fail to adjust them when the dynamics of the environment change because they see their thinking as infallible.

“Being positive isn’t a bad thing, it is simply being overdone,” Michalowicz notes. “Being negative isn’t bad either; its value is just being ignored. So start getting a little more negative in business. It will positively help you.”

To learn more success-minded ideas for your small business, contact SCORE “Mentors to America’s Small Business.” SCORE is a nonprofit organization of more than 12,000 volunteers who provide free, confidential business mentoring and training workshops to small business owners. To find the SCORE chapter nearest you or to chat with a mentor online, visit www.score.org.