What good are positive emotions in the workplace?

As scientists study the brain and learn more about how we achieve optimal functioning, the term positivity has finally captured business leaders’ interests.

One study of CEOs showed that training to be more positive could boost their productivity by 15 percent, and managers improved customer satisfaction by 42 percent. Despite such training’s amazing results, many leaders remain completely unfamiliar with the concept.

Being positive isn’t simply about being nice and giving in, nor does it mean suppressing negative information and emotions. Both are critical for optimal performance. Apparently, however, a 3:1 positivity-to-negativity ratio is the tipping point for individuals and business teams to go from average to flourishing.

In business, positive emotions yield:

• Better decisions. Researchers at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business studied how positive moods affect managers. Managers who were more positive were more accurate and careful in making decisions, and were more effective interpersonally.

• Better team work. Managers with positive emotions infect their work groups with similar feelings and show improved team coordination, while reporting less effort to accomplish more.

• Better negotiating. At Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, researchers learned that when people negotiate complex bargains, being positive surfaces as a contributing factor for success. Negotiators who strategically display positivity are more likely to gain concessions, close deals and incorporate future business relationships into the contracts they seal.

This article examines how positivity benefits business and how you can raise your positivity-to-negativity ratio and flourish.

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This is a brief synopsis of a 1700 & 1000-word article suitable for consultants’ newsletters for executives and leaders in organizations. It is available for purchase with full reprint rights, which means you may put your name on it and use it in your newsletters, blogs or other marketing materials. You may also modify it and add your personal experiences and perspectives.

The complete 1700 word article includes these important concepts:

• Emotions’ Role in Business
• The Broaden-and-Build Model of Positive Emotions
• Positivity and High Performance
• The Tipping Point: 3:1 Positivity Ratio
• Improve Your Ratio
• Raise Your Positivity

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Someone in your company may have recently been promoted to a leadership position. This person successfully competed against other qualified candidates, some of whom were probably just as experienced and smart.

As often happens in judging one candidate over another, the decision most likely came down to degrees of “executive presence.”

Presence: Often referred to as “bearing,” presence incorporates a range of verbal and nonverbal patterns (one’s appearance, posture, vocal quality, subtle movements)—a whole collection of signals that others process into an evaluative impression of a person. ~ Karl Albrecht, Social Intelligence: The New Science of Success

In this day and age, executive presence comes in all shapes and sizes, including some you wouldn’t normally recognize. Who would have thought, 30 years ago, that Bill Gates would command it?

Would Mark Zuckerberg, the 26-year-old founder of Facebook, have stood out as a high-potential CEO? But as one of the youngest men ever to be named Time Magazine’s Person of the Year, he certainly has presence—albeit a “Gen Y” version of it.

An Internet search on executive presence reveals definitions and advice on everything from dressing for success and patterns of speech to more fundamental issues of emotional and social intelligence.

As it turns out, everyone’s definition of the term seems to differ. But planning your career and determining your leadership development needs shouldn’t be left to guesswork.

11 Aspects of Executive Presence

Most people aren’t born with executive presence. They develop the requisite skills with experience, maturity and a great deal of effort.

This article examines eleven qualities that contribute to executive presence and how you can cultivate your own presence and so that others perceive you as a high-potential leader.

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This is a brief synopsis of a 2000 & 1000-word article suitable for consultants’ newsletters for executives and leaders in organizations. It is available for purchase with full reprint rights, which means you may put your name on it and use it in your newsletters, blogs or other marketing materials.

You may also modify it and add your personal experiences and perspectives.

The complete 2,000 word article includes these important concepts:

•    Searching for Executive Presence
•    11 Aspects of Executive Presence
•    Storytelling for Professional Success
•    What Really Matters
•    6 Steps for Building Executive Presence

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If you are a Content for Coaches client and your account is current, no need to order. Send me an email to confirm that you wish to use this article for your next newsletter.

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