How Well do you Generate Positive Emotions in Others?

Jo Bishop Reviews Challenge 4 and Wraps up the Series…

Reviewing Challenge 4: Connecting achievements of the organization and team to individual achievements, and vice versa

Many people reading this won’t know me. Those that do often describe me as warm, kind, considerate and caring. In fact, kindness is one of my top strengths and compassion is one of my driving values. In MBTI (Myer-Briggs Type Indicator) terms, I’m an ENFJ (Extraversion; Intuition; Feeling; Judgment) , which means I show my feelings externally.

You could say little surprise then that I’m concluding a blog on generating positive emotions in others. In truth I have found it hard to do with discipline and rigour. The four challenges, all slightly different, forced me to focus in a way that I’ve not done before.

Why am I telling you about me? Because I know that there are many differing psychological trait preferences and indeed cultures that prefer not to show feelings in the way that I do. And may consider it weak or inappropriate. What I’m advocating doesn’t require an uncomfortable display of feelings, at the basic level its information transfer.

Far from being weak and inappropriate it is essential for today’s leaders to do this.

Why?

What makes it essential for a leader in 2017 to generate positive emotions in others?

Never have times been a changing in the way they are now. We even have acronyms for it VUCA (Volatile-Uncertain-Complex-Ambiguous) or TUNA (Turbulent-Uncertain-Novel-Ambiguous)
Generating positive emotions in others builds a psychological bank of goodwill. Each positive message acts as an extra deposit. When the tougher times come or the developmental feedback needs to be shared these deposits act as a cushion*
When asked what people most need from their manager; being supportive is consistently the top thing I hear. This is backed up in latest research by McKinsey*

And it is possible to generate positive emotions in others without displaying a gush of feelings

How?

Approach it as a strategic goal
If you knew that generating positive emotions in others was key to delivering on your organizational goals how would you approach this differently?
Consider setting yourself personal goals that you can measure yourself against
Be genuine, be authentic, be real. This won’t work for anyone if we try to manufacture meaningless messages of pointless positivity

The good news is that you can do this whatever psychological trait preference you have. Or indeed if it isn’t culturally natural for you. If you choose to, you can learn to do this. And my work in organizations tells me that as leaders we simply don’t, just don’t, do this often enough.

I naively thought that I do this all the time. But the truth is that something happened to me this week that shows me I really don’t. A relationship I value hit an unexpected rocky patch, and I haven’t done a good enough job of giving recognition and building pride.

In conclusion

Ultimately the human condition can be a fragile one, whether we like to admit it to ourselves or not. And we all need a boost of positive emotion to help be at our best.

As we rush round creating policies, procedures, placards and promises of things to come, I urge you to stop, take a breath and just think about how many positive emotions you have generated in others today. Ultimately how many other things could you do today that would have as positive an impact, and cost you absolutely nothing?

Jo Bishop

Jo is a Chartered Fellow of the CIPD, an executive and career coach, working to help iOpener Institute to deliver its purpose:

To develop people and organizational performance through the power of Happiness at Work.

*References: