6 Ways to Foster More Happiness in the Workplace

Happy employees are more productive, more creative and less likely to leave. It doesn’t have to cost a fortune to create a fun environment at your workplace. If you embody your ideal corporate culture and integrate joy and laughter into your daily routine, your employees will follow.

It’s wise to do everything you can to prevent dissatisfaction among your employees. A large turnover rate can quickly erode your hard work and deplete your resources. Once a staff member starts to look for other career options, he's already got one foot out the door.


As you grow your business, invest a little time to make your company a great place to work. Pay attention to the personality traits of your current staff, hire new employees carefully and foster an environment of joy, hard work and professionalism. The following tips will help you create a corporate culture full of fun.

1. Lead by example. Your employees will follow your lead when it comes to corporate culture and behavior. If your only interactions with your team are serious and formal, your employees will feel the need to be professional at all times. Be open about your past mistakes and learning moments. Add a little self-deprecating humor when it’s appropriate to help your employees view you as human and approachable. When staff members feel joyful, they’re more motivated and produce better work.

2. Don’t confuse seriousness and solemnity. Laughter is often a way for people to deal with intensely stressful situations. If your company is in the middle of a crisis and an employee cracks a joke, don’t assume they’re not taking the situation seriously. Humor can be a great catalyst for creative ideas and problem solving. The more your staff members are worried about how to correctly behave, the less they’ll be focused on finding a solution.

3. Evaluate happiness as well as performance. Add a section on employee happiness and job satisfaction to each staff member’s annual review. Make it a habit to ask your employees what makes them enjoy their work and what doesn’t. If anyone has a particular issue, do your best to listen, understand and find a solution. Regular opportunities for employees to speak honestly with you — without repercussions or fear of losing their job — will create trust within your team.

4. Embody optimism. Staff meetings can quickly become monotonous. Use each meeting as an opportunity to encourage positive team dynamics. Go around the room and ask, “What is the best thing that’s happened to you since our last meeting? The benefit is two-fold. First, you’ll engage employees on a personal level and learn more about them and their hobbies. Second, if you begin every meeting with this question, you’re employees will begin to think about what they’re going to stay before each meeting. Instead of stressing about their growing to-do list, they’ll be thinking about the most positive parts of their life. Your employees will be more joyful and optimistic, which will contribute to dynamic and productive meetings.

5. Celebrate. Recognize and acknowledge your employees successes, no matter how small. Staff celebrations don’t need to be fancy, planned or expensive. Acknowledgement can be as simple as sharing one team member’s accomplishment during a staff meeting. Alternatively, you could host a quick team celebration in the break room or kitchen of your office. Celebrate project milestones, promotions, client acquisitions and birthdays.

6. Eliminate negative influences quickly. Negativity, gossip and internal politics can ruin your team’s cohesiveness. When a new employee comes on board, evaluate more than their work product. Notice how they interact with other members of their team and their general attitude. Keep an eye on potential personality conflicts. If you see a problem, address it immediately. Large teams naturally develop cliques or small groups of like-minded people, but be mindful it doesn’t negatively affect the overall team dynamic.

Jacqueline Whitmore is an etiquette expert and founder of The Protocol School of Palm Beach. She is also the author of Poised for Success: Mastering the Four Qualities That Distinguish Outstanding Professionals (St. Martin's Press, 2011) and Business Class: Etiquette Essentials for Success at Work (St. Martin's Press, 2005).

How to Develop Boldness as a Leader

All great leaders, both in the current arena and throughout history, have in common a willingness to take risks and be bold. Articles and studies reinforce the importance of bold leadership, but how exactly you become bold as a leader? Let’s take a look.

1. Know the right way to take risks

Taking risks is often thought to be as the defining quality of a bold leader, but you should keep in mind all the associated factors with each risk, and only then should you proceed with any decision, regardless of whether you decided to go on or not.

Thorough analysis before taking a step forward is crucial, and will help you formulate mitigation strategies in case your decision backfires. Everyone makes mistakes, and thus having a sound preventive strategy around is always a good idea.

 2. Create champions for the cause

 
A leader who prefers the lone-wolf style is bound to be ineffective. If you are to lead people from the forefront being an aspiring C-suite executive, you should be ready to work with others and bring them to your cause.

For emerging leaders, the need to do so is even stronger, since you will be spearheading change often, and without champions, you are sure to be faced with considerable hurdles and obstructions along the way.

3. Bring your enemies closer

If you are reading this, chances are that you’re either an emerging leader, or already part of top-level management. Acting from such a position, being bold means you are or will often be the bringer of change and will take risks to do so. But keep in mind that there will always be naysayers who will react or lash out against this type of leadership.

Ignoring these squeaky wheels will be detrimental; the best way to deal with them is to engage and try to convert them to your cause. These people often turn out to be devoted evangelists to your cause.

4. Avoid being complacent

Have you ever heard of the boiled frog syndrome or active inertia? In universities all over the world, this concept is taught in graduate-level courses to business administration students. It basically refers to being content with the current pace and way of doing things when everything seems to be on the right track.

Being complacent with the way things are going can result in the leader being a victim of inertia. As a bold leader, you should never lose that spark which propels the organization to keep moving forward.

Just keep in mind that every leader can be bold. This trait isn’t for the chosen few who are born with charisma. Bold leadership is a skill that can be learned, cultivated, and nourished with time, practice, and most of all, action!

Simon T. Bailey is CEO of Brilliance Institute, which consults with individuals and organizations, and he is the former sales director of the Disney Institute. He is the author the new book "Shift Your Brilliance – Harness the Power of You Inc." and is the sequel to his bestseller "Release Your Brilliance."

Is Your Leadership Presence a True Reflection of Who You Really Are?

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inSHow do others experience you as a leader? According to psychologist Kathryn Cramer, every leader has a “signature presence,” a set of leadership assets that are as unique as your handwritten signature. Just as your autograph telegraphs who you are, so, too, do the daily actions that comprise your leadership presence.

Think about your signature for a moment: how has it morphed over time? As a young girl, my signature was a near carbon-copy of what I’d learned from my third-grade teacher, Mrs. Durr — a replica of what I’d been taught was the “correct” way to form the letters that comprised my name. As the years wore on, my signature began to reflect more of my personality and life’s experiences. No doubt, yours has as well.

Our handwriting also shows tell-tale signs of stress or distraction: just look at a document that was signed during a hospital stay or in a time of crisis. And, in much the same way that the act of writing is largely unconscious as we scrawl our name at the bottom of a credit card receipt, as leaders, we can be unaware of the messages we send to colleagues.

In her book “Lead Positive: What Highly Effective Leaders See, Say, and Do,” Cramer writes about the difficulties of seeing ourselves as we really are. As difficult as this self-awareness may be, she says it’s imperative that leaders use a combination of personal reflection and asking for feedback. Cramer explains that when you understand the positive qualities that comprise your signature presence, you can then allow them to “shine through in all that you do.”
Here are five questions you can ask yourself and others to help determine those distinctive qualities that define your leadership.

1. When I’m at my best, how would I describe myself?
2. When I receive compliments, what specifically do people praise? Is there a theme to the praise?
3. In what types of situations do I easily slip into “the zone” — meaning, with confidence and fluidity?
4. Ask a colleague, “In what ways have I been a help to you?”
5. Ask three people you know well: “Name five things about me that you can count on me to do.”

Is your leadership presence a true representation of the person you really are? All leaders have unique gifts they bring to bear in the workplace. Use these five questions to help you understand the person that others see so that you can lead with your own distinctive flair.

Career strategist Jennifer V. Miller is a former HR manager and corporate trainer who helps mid-career professionals chart the course for their next big “leap.” A self-described “professional opportunity cultivator,” Miller provides one-to-one and small group professional development coaching via her company SkillSource. She offers up tips for leading yourself and others at The People Equation.

Three Ways to Cultivate Humility for Better Leadership

Think about all the great leaders you respect, and why you admire them. Most of the time, the reason will be the accomplishments they have achieved.

But if fame equates to success these days, where does humility come in? Is there any place for humility in leadership? Business schools all over the world emphasize the importance of humility in leadership, but there really doesn’t seem much point, right?

Wrong! Let’s take a deeper look.

"Humility" is generally defined as the quality of being modest or lacking in pretense. This seems to contradict the perception that leaders need to be bold. However, one needs to understand that it doesn’t mean a leader should be meek or timid. It simply points toward the fact that humble leaders not only knows what they are capable of, but also attempts to seek the help of others. They understand that everything is not about them — it's the team that matters.

Management expert Kenneth Hartley Blanchard aptly noted, “People with humility do not think less of themselves; they just think about themselves less.” If you are an emerging leader, you can get started on incorporating humility by working with the following principles:

1. Understand your weaknesses

Successful leaders are aware of their weaknesses and defer to the wisdom of those more skilled and experienced in particular fields of knowledge. You might be the master of your own arena, but you certainly can’t be the master of all trades. By understanding your weaknesses, you will be better able to delegate tasks appropriately, exhibiting humility in a subtle manner.

2. Foster curiosity

Welcoming new knowledge is another deciding factor to being a humble leader. Even if you possess in-depth knowledge about a particular subject, encourage others to share what they know. An aloof leader is a bad leader. By being passionately curious about everything that goes on, you will be able to learn a lot, and your team will not feel intimated by you. This basically authenticates humanity, a factor critical to inspiring others.

3. Acknowledge the accomplishments of others

Taking all the credit when something goes well is a mistake that many leaders make, even today. This creates resentment in your workforce, leading to eventual dissension in the ranks. A humble leader acknowledges the accomplishments of others, both qualitatively and quantitatively.

Legendary football coach Paul William “Bear” Bryant said this better than anyone: “If anything goes bad, I did it. If anything goes semi-good, we did it. If anything goes really good, then you did it.”
One additional tip that can help you develop humility as a leader: There is such a thing as too much humility, so be sure to step forward and make yourself the central figure when a situation calls for needed leadership.

Simon T. Bailey is CEO of Brilliance Institute, which consults with individuals and organizations, and he is the former sales director of the Disney Institute. He is the author the new book "Shift Your Brilliance – Harness the Power of You Inc." and is the sequel to his bestseller "Release Your Brilliance."