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!

I once had a mentor whose grounding principle was "How you do one thing is how you do everything." When I heard it, it kind of landed. Not fully. Truthfully, I wrote it off to "personal development speak" and put it in my back pocket. But...I started to pay attention to where this might be true. I noticed how I addressed things (straight on or "avoidantly"), how I was with my time integrity, how I followed through on things, how I engaged with conflict, and how this rippled into every other area of my life. Years later, after coaching hundreds of private clients and teaching thousands, I can see this to be absolutely true -- maybe not the exact wording of it or 100% of the time -- but the absolute ramifications of it and the gift in paying attention to it for ourselves and those we lead.

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.").

Years ago when my ex-husband and I completed our marriage, to keep things extra clean and as emotionally easy as possible, we worked with a mediator. Heading into that first mediation session we both knew what we knew. Our intentions were clear, our energy was clean, and we were present to the situation at hand and how we wanted to be with each other and for our kids. We went into the first mediation session, each of us with a Post-It detailing what we wanted our division of assets and agreements to look like. Four months (and a lot of cash) later, we walked out with almost exactly what was on those Post-Its. Having the mediator helped us with the paperwork and navigating some of CA's divorce laws, AND, we knew what we knew going in.

I'm considering starting up a podcast or some kind of weekly "live" on Instagram or LinkedIn (possibly both for the different platforms, email or DM me if you have a preference). We're currently exploring what feels congruent and most useful for people and, in the meantime, I'm playing with the content and pathways that work best for the two groups. My intention, of course, is to make it as simple, useful, and easy as possible for all.  So we've been experimenting...

One thing for sure -- regardless of the platform you're on -- is the challenge, dance, and journey of self-leadership, self-care, self-partnership, culture creation, relationship navigation, and the things that make us all human together.

One of those human things? The feeling of being "stuck."