Three Ways to Shift the Mood of Your Team

What Mood Does Your Team Live In?

Creating a positive and productive mood space for your team is one of the most prominent skills leaders need to build resilient organizations. As leader, you are the weather. Your moods and emotions set the tone for your team, and are constantly reflected back from those around you. So what can you do to help your team shift into a more positive mood space?

1) Name it: What mood has our team been living in?

Invite your people to reflect on the overall mood space of the team. Moods are long-term. They last days, weeks or even years. Individuals, teams and organizations all live in a certain mood that greatly affect our results. Emotions are short-term. They may last for only moments, hours or a day. They are precursors for the actions you take. What long-term mood is your team embodying?

2) Claim it: How is the mood we embody affecting our results?

Once your team can identify the mood they tend to regularly live in, help them come to terms with it. How we accept or oppose facts and possibilities greatly affects morale and productivity. Although we regularly visit all basic moods, the ability to shift out of opposition (resentment or resignation), and into acceptance greatly affects our ability to cultivate happier, healthier and more productive relationships.

3) Reframe it: What new possibilities do we want to create?

If your team is embodying a mood of peace or ambition, by all means, keep doing what you’ve always done. However, if this distinction has shed some light on less-than-stellar results, help your team step into a more productive mood space by truly listening to their concerns, providing clarity and role modeling gratitude. Embodying a mood of peace doesn’t always mean agreement, it’s simply being able to accept the facts. How do you work on attaining the consistent, emotionally intelligent leadership skills that breed success? Here are a few other suggestions regarding moods at work:

• Look for gratitude, make others aware of the greatness that lies in them.

• Notice emotions around you, and how do people act in your presence. Is there a shift when you are gone?

• Be pleasant and cooperative, it is almost impossible to have executive presence without it.

• Be emotionally attractive, so the emotions other catch from you inspire and uplift.