How can you as a leader strengthen the positive climate?

What should one as a manager infer from these results? That you must introduce step dancing and weekly laughter courses in your company? Barely. That as a leader you must always have a smile on your face and be happy and upbeat? Nor. There is a need to enter this field in a balanced way, and it is obvious to consider whether one's own emotional state can have a more productive meaning for the organization one is responsible for. The approach will depend on both the manager and the organization.

How can you as a manager work purposefully with your own emotional state and the climate in the organization?

Exercise 1: Spare your organization your irrelevant negative emotions

When you become aware of your own emotions and the effect they have on the organization, it allows you to make useful adjustments.

An example:

A senior executive from a consulting firm had become aware that his often frustrated, emotional state in the morning was negatively affecting his staff. The employees had told him that it was an energy killer when the manager came rushing in in the morning with a highly stressed look in his eyes. Often the manager would give a few urgent tasks and sharp comments to the employees before rushing into his office. He thus left at 8.50 in the morning the employees with a feeling of being behind before the day had really started - and with an unjustified feeling that their manager was unhappy with their productivity. When the manager recognized the effect his stressed-out morning mood was having, and that at the same time he didn't immediately see himself in a position to change the morning mood much, he found that he started the day by going straight to his office and staying there until he had overview of today's tasks. It gave him time to de-stress and he got a feeling of calm in his stomach. After half an hour in his office, the manager now goes out to the employees, says 'good morning' in a present way and talks about the day's tasks in a more balanced and happy state.

The example is intended as an illustration of how you, as a manager, can increase your awareness of how you influence the organization, and can relatively simply ensure that employees are not disturbed by the most irrelevant, negative emotions that you are sometimes and temporarily affected by. There are countless other ways to make minor adjustments to one's emotional expressions.

Exercise 2: Exercise your optimism muscle

If you as a manager find that you are personally too prone to pessimism, you can take more comprehensive action by developing a more optimistic style of explanation. For some it will require a therapeutic course, but many can use a method described in Martin Seligman's book Tillært Optimisme (1990). The method involves the development of thoughts and behavior in a more positive direction via a form of inner learned optimism. Optimism especially in relation to organisation, efficiency and recruitment.

One way to explore your own current optimism is Seligman's optimism test, which you can find on the site www.authentichappiness.com. (To gain access to the test, you need to register as a user on the site. It's easy and free)

By doing the test, you also get a concrete introduction to learned optimism, which is basically about better understanding one's own way of thinking and then challenging the parts of the thought patterns that are not useful. The test can also help you formulate your own optimistic explanatory style.

Optimistic explanatory style can consist of

• Permanency. Positive events are explained as something ongoing. The fact that sales are picking up, for example, is seen as an expression of the organisation's skilled staff and well-thought-out strategies. The optimist tends to believe that negative events are temporary and will use his mental energy to focus on the improved situation that these events will undoubtedly replace. The optimist thus relatively quickly focuses on the fleeting nature of negative events, while the pessimist will assess that the negative will persist over time.

Question: How likely are you to say or think: "that's how it always is" and "it never stops" when you run into difficulties?

• Generalisation. The optimist defines problems narrowly and specifically and has a tendency to generalize positive events. He says: "I'm under pressure on project A. But I usually succeed in getting projects intact through stressful periods". The pessimist clings to the problem to a greater extent and remembers other similar problems: "I am under pressure on project A, and it is just SO typical that I run into problems when I am the project manager on a project".

Question: To what extent do you perceive the problems you encounter in your daily life as specific and limited, and to what extent do you perceive them as universal?

• Personification. The optimist assesses positive events as something he himself (or others in the organization) has contributed to, as an expression of the personal skills and strengths that have come into play. For example: "The positive media coverage at the moment is good for our company. We are a team that is good at communicating clearly externally and being visible around our activities”. Negative experiences are generally assessed as specific and external: "It was this assignment that went badly - last week I did well. Moreover, it was a task that was impossible to succeed in because the stakeholders were in complete disagreement.”

Question: To what extent do you tend to perceive problems as expressions of your own inadequacy? To what extent do you reason: "It's also my own fault"?

The pessimistic style of explanation implies that one perceives positive experiences and events as expressions of external conditions in which one has no part: "It was also an easy task, it would have been successful for anyone". In addition to externalizing the positive, it is defined as a single: "It went well this one time, next time it will probably go less well". The negative experiences are seen as general, persistent and personal: "That's how it's always been for me, I make a fool of myself again and again. I never learn from my mistakes. This is yet another proof of my poor leadership skills…”.

In its extreme consequence, the pessimistic style of explanation is in line with the depressive expression. Here, the explanatory style has become so automatic and learned that it permeates the person's life and work, so that virtually everything is seen through this pessimistic lens.

In summary, one can say that learned optimism is about practicing a positive level of expectation in relation to personally valuable goals. In addition, it is about facing mistakes, obstacles and problems with a certain personal distance in the realization that problems are inevitable but should not occupy unnecessary amounts of mental energy.

Exercise 3: How can you contribute to promoting positive relationships?

Create strong teams! Team organization is an obvious and often chosen way to strengthen positive, strong relationships at work. Many companies have introduced some form of team organisation. As with many other things, you will be able to find both good and bad stories about what team organization has meant for employee well-being and productivity.

With a qualified and positive effort from the team's leaders, you can create teams that meet the expectations of increased productivity, learning and development. Team organization can contribute to increased responsibility among employees, better collaboration and social support. Good, well-functioning teams also reduce the effects of stress, just as they contribute to strengthening relationships between colleagues, increase the opportunity for collegial support and feedback - and thus primarily contribute to promoting positive relationships.

Exercise 4: How do you make your employees love their jobs?

Imagine that your employees no longer get paid for going to work. On the other hand, voluntary work has been introduced - all employees work without pay. You remain deeply dependent on their contribution to the company.

What will you do to get your employees to continue to show up for work and make a good effort?

Many managers conclude, when they are asked the question, that they will place much greater emphasis on making clear what the purpose of what the company is doing, and to a greater extent seek to be inspiring in their narrative about the deeper meaning of the work. In everyday life, many managers tend to forget the overall purpose because they become absorbed in the day's concrete activities and challenges.

It is a pity that many do not pay more attention to the positive meaning in everyday life. Because meaningfulness has, hardly surprisingly, proven to be a strong motivator and productivity booster.

When people experience a deeper meaning in what they do, or that the work is personally meaningful to them, a significantly reduced stress level, lower employee turnover, less absenteeism and less dissatisfaction are seen. Correspondingly, there is an increased level of commitment, involvement, responsibility and satisfaction.

Interestingly, it depends on the type of company and product involved. Even somewhat dubious products or tasks that are not immediately attractive can be perceived by employees as having a positive meaning.

Four characteristics of meaningful work:

1. The work has an important positive effect on employees' well-being
2. The work is associated with an important characteristic or personal value
3. The importance of the work extends beyond the here-and-now and creates "rings in the water"
4. The work promotes positive relationships or an experience of cohesion between people

How can it be that two people, who formally have exactly the same job, have very different ways of fulfilling the role and have different perceptions of whether it is a good job and of what the purpose of the job is?

Do you work to earn money or because it is a calling?

You can see your work as a job, a career or a vocation. People who see their job as a calling work more, have less absenteeism and a higher level of joy in life than others with similar jobs.

One can expect that those who have higher satisfaction with their work have jobs that are typically perceived as more interesting. But it turns out that this is not the case. How can people who have the same job function and who sit next to each other in the same organization think so differently about their jobs?

It is absolutely central to well-being that the employees themselves are active in shaping the framework for work.

It is therefore obvious for the manager to investigate what level of meaning the employees experience, before possibly starting to change the situation.

Involvement in the right

It is about involving the employees in the right way and engaging their creativity and innovative ideas directly in the development of the core business. It helps to create a much higher commitment, and it is quite real that employees are critical when they are not allowed to contribute to what the organization was created for. If they do not get involved in what gives meaning to the organization, then it is understandable that various positive approaches come under fire for being new appreciative processes that must put a lid on criticism and acid mines.

Employees, management and, not least, customers must have the experience that the organization's core service is being developed, and that the organization is succeeding in what it was set up to do. It is precisely when participation in important strategic dialogues is opened up that employees get the opportunity to bring their initiative, creativity and passion into play. The way these processes are carried out can help to create better collaboration, communication, knowledge sharing, job satisfaction, etc. But it is important to remember to involve the employees in what is important - or what is right.