The Positive Energy Workplace

Why is positive energy important? How do we create it? How does it impact our culture? For years we've worked with leaders and organizations on building healthier more positively contagious cultures and authentic positive energy leadership. Often when I speak about how to do this, people will ask for the "checklist" -- the checklist for building a healthy culture or leading better. ("Yes, yes, yes... I know positive energy is important, yes yes yes... give me the checklist.") We can give you a checklist, trust me, we have many -- however, it will ultimately only be as good as the honest inner work you do to truly create positive energy within yourself first. Creating healthy leadership and a healthy culture is an inside-job... 

Last month, Harvard Business Review published an article, "The Best Leaders Have a Contagious Positive Energy".  (Four of my favorite words in one title: leaders, contagious, positive, and energy!) The article speaks to some of the what and why of positive energy leadership. In the video below, I offer you a bit more about the (sustainable) authentic how as well as some things to watch out for as you build your leadership and culture. Enjoy!

Years ago when I wrote CONTAGIOUS CULTURE (McGraw-Hill, 2015), people were surprised to find that when I talked about “creating a healthy culture,” I pointed them to first look at their own leadership health, and how they showed up, to actually create that culture. This was both confronting and liberating for many, after all, I can’t control my culture or the people around me, however, I can absolutely control ME; how I take care of myself, how I show up, the energy I bring to the table, and how I ultimately contribute to being the culture I want (or don’t want). This means I have tremendous power, this also means there may be big work to do.  

My stance on culture created a lot of positive results as well as many questions for people, so I wrote my next book. In CONTAGIOUS YOU (McGraw-Hill, 2019), I dug deeper into the IEP Method® body of work and took people further into how to be their most positively and usefully contagious self (energetically, emotionally, behaviorally, and attitudinally) and how to strengthen their leadership in order to create the impact and culture they wanted. Again, confronting — however even more liberating if you did the work (at 384 pages, with an executive coaching program pretty much built into it, as one reader emailed me, "It’s not exactly a light read, Anese, but it is a game changer.").

Experiencing our collective entry into 2021 and immersed in news about this week's events – plus the intensity on almost every front of 2020 – it's felt harder to read "motivational" posts, books, or articles lately – or to write them (which is tricky when you’re in the business of leadership and growth and your livelihood is dependent on your ability to hold your space, hold space for others, stay clean vibe, and serve). However, I also know that as a coach, advisor, teacher, and human, my job is not to motivate or fake my state, it’s to hold space and offer inquiries for people to think about things honestly and in ways that may support their growth, leadership, congruency, and peace.