For Financial Success, Check Your Mood at the Door

Recognize This! – Your mood affects bottom-line performance.

That’s right. Leader “mood” is now identified as a key contributor to financial success. In what it describes essentially as a “No, duh!” moment, Harvard Business Review reports:

“We found that of all the elements affecting bottom-line performance, the importance of the leader’s mood and its attendant behaviors are most surprising. That powerful pair set off a chain reaction: The leader’s mood and behaviors drive the moods and behaviors of everyone else. A cranky and ruthless boss creates a toxic organization filled with negative underachievers who ignore opportunities; an inspirational, inclusive leader spawns acolytes for whom any challenge is surmountable. The final link in the chain is performance: profit or loss.”

Like I wrote about yesterday, your attitude is a choice you make every day. But when you’re the leader, the choice is exponentially more important. The article goes on to argue against “putting on a game face,” but instead finding an authentic but generally upbeat mood that inspires and encourages.

How do you do that? Try thanking just one person every day for their contributions. I’ve written before on research that found: “If managers just increased their praise and recognition of one employee once a day for 21 business days in a row, six months later, those teams as opposed to control group had a 31% higher level of productivity.”

Choosing your mood is no harder than choosing to notice, appreciate and recognize the people. Now that you know the bottom line is on the line – will you choose a different attitude and mood?

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