I spent the last few days of my vacation with an elderly relative during his last few days on earth, at a hospice home. The home was a lovely and peaceful setting for its guests and visitors - all except for the neighboring building next door. I was enraged the first time I heard how loud they werez. Don’t they know that people are grieving over here? How dare they! The noisy white Montessori school was within earshot of the hospice home and only a few yards away. The children laughed and screamed loudly without a single piece of quiet respect as they swallowed up the playground in a melee of activity. Couldn't the teaching staff show some courtesy by at least trying to keep the noise down?
I was curious at how all the windows and doors of the hospice home were propped open, especially those that were facing the Montessori school. Then I saw that even some guests were sitting outside of their rooms, quietly listening to the playful children.
And then I realized what was going on. The playful sounds emanating from next door were not damaging but nurturing. Either through divine intervention or very bad zoning laws, the relationship between these two adjacent buildings grew into a balance of healing and harmony, with the Montessori school doling out generous doses of energy and power to the guests in the hospice home.
We all affect each other in our relationships, especially at work. Each day you bring with you a potential to affect other people. You bring the potential to create synergistic and symbiotic harmony, whether you know it or not. As a leader, you need to concern yourself with how you impact others. Sometimes the things that you say or do to your co-workers moves them in ways not obvious. You may not even realize it. Your influence has power.
Recently I was visiting with a friend who had just left her employer. She told me how her manager rarely said positive comments to his staff, but when he did it was only in private in his office. When he was on the trading floor he would complain about his junior associates, publicly bringing attention to their faults in front of their peers. She was devastated, humiliated, and demoralized. "He never knew how much he influenced all of us, and never understood how damaging his influence was. And now he wonders why morale is so bad over there."
If you supervise or manage even one or two co-workers, then you have been given a responsibility, and the responsibility for the morale of this team sits squarely on your shoulders. Here are three ways to develop positive feelings and improve the mood and morale of your staff.
Catch people doing something right and bring it to their attention. It can be a spontaneous and verbal recognition of their effort, or you can do it through an annual awards banquet or a quarterly function that recognizes performance and achievement. Or even during a weekly huddle. Either way, you can harness the power of social influence to shape the what is accepted and recognized as strong performance. People will feel the incentive to achieve, to receive that recognition. If your organization has the ability, put these awards and stories on social media or in an internal podcast format for your colleagues. Interview and record these team members, sharing what they did to receive the award or even the simple recognition. This doubles as a training moment, and also inspires colleagues to stretch beyond their reach.
Keep a positive and optimistic outlook. Your mood is the thermostat of the team’s attitude, and everyone looks to you to see how you gauge it. If you face a grave circumstance within your company, keep a firm vision and offer hope with empathy to your colleagues and co-workers. Hope exists in everything. It’s up to you to find that hope and share it with everyone else. “We can get through this, just like we have done so in the past, and we are going to be okay.”
Understand how much power your influence really carries. An arrogant rolling of the eyes, a careless word, and even innocently talking over someone can point your team in the direction of apathy. Each contact that you have with a member of your team will either add to or take away from the interdependent nature of your relationship.
The entire culture of your organization can be shaped and molded through the power of your influence that you wield as a leader. Take care to influence it in a positive manner. And if you do it well, you will give hope and encouragement to your colleagues.
Scott Love is the host and producer of The Rainmaking Podcast, a globally ranked top-2 percent show, the editor in chief of The Rainmaking Magazine, and the founder of The Attorney Search Group, a legal recruiting firm. He has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The American Lawyer, Bloomberg, Above The Law, Huffington Post, and dozens of business publications across the globe. He is the co-author of Rainmaker Confidential and also speaks professionally at legal, corporate, and association events and retreats on recruiting and rainmaking strategies. www.therainmakingpodcast.com