Understanding and being aware of your own emotional state as a leader is crucial because of how it impacts your team, but it’s just as important to be aware of and influence the mood of your team.
In this post we provide some tips for how to do this.
Read your team’s energy
It’s a helpful starting point to understand how your team feel right now.
Do you know what the dominant feeling is?
Over the course of a few meetings, either online or real life, have a go at ‘reading the room’.
Make a mental note of what you feel the the overall mood of the group is, as well as where you would place individuals within the various energy zones.
At Hatching Ideas, we’ve seen many organisations use pulse engagement to surveys as a way to understand and monitor the moral and mood.
Don’t forget to read your own energy
You could also ask a peer to observe how you come across during these sessions. If a problem arose, did you respond with high, negative energy? Do you sense low, negative energy within your team?
Take control
The pressures of a business environment means that stress and frustration are likely to be regular features of your day.
Negative emotions can quick spread and subsequently have a damaging effect on team moral and productivity.
So, how can you take control as a leader?
Here are five recommendations:
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Reset
Projecting positive emotions takes a lot less effort when they are genuine! Taking some time for yourself is an important part of helping you to control and influence your own moods.
Once you've ensured you have control over yourself and your mood, you are much more likely to positively influence someone else. -
Reframe
Take a moment to try and consider things from a different perspective. This repositioning can result in negative reactions being seen in a completely different line.
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Beware
Reflect on how you deal with scenarios when you have felt negative emotions. How did you react? When you've felt your your emotions flare up have you kept them at bay? Shielded them from your team? Or unleashed them?
Don't hide your emotions, but don't let them run rampant either. And most importantly, don't let your emotions ruin the day of others. -
Amplify
Encourage the optimistic voices within your team. Reinforce their optimism and this will gradually help shift the emotional norm back to a positive place.
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Address
If you identify a source of negativity in the team - have a conversation with the culprit. Often it is as simple as making people aware of the impact they have on others
Helping you reset the tone
With the pressures of navigating a pandemic and the added challenges of working remotely, you may have found the last few months especially difficult within the team and perhaps the overall mood of the team has suffered as a result.
We know how overwhelming it can feel to analyse and adjust your own behaviours if you’re already feeling burnt out.
Although it may feel like a monumental task right now, we can lend you some extra support in getting the whole team back to a positive, empowered state of mind.
Just give Rebecca a call or connect on LinkedIn if you would like some more tailored advice based on our experience of doing this.
If any of this has been of interest and you would like further information on how this can be used for your own development, or that of your colleagues, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us.