Great leaders evoke the emotions of those they lead

     Leaders cannot treat themselves differently from other people in the organization, effective leaders know when to let others lead, even if doing so puts the member out of their comfort zone.  Great leaders evoke the emotions of those they lead and use the command of emotions to make it all about the team members not about themselves.  To do that leaders must be conscious about which emotions to display and when to display them.  Leaders do this by motivating people through building a sense of inclusiveness, the feeling that we are in this together and that we all know and understand what to do, why we are here and what we stand for, which is how they connect with and become accepted by the team.  The leader can create a sense of “we” by using the emotions as well as other tools of enabling, equipping, empowering and engaging.

     Emotions are contagious and impact productivity, decision-making, creativity, teamwork, and more. Negative emotions reduce employee satisfaction, can create burnout, destroy teamwork, and even hurt financial performance and increase absenteeism. During transformation, there are a lot of emotions to deal with, loss, frustration, uncertainty, fear, hope, and many more can be stirred up. As a leader always remember that feelings impact the team and their ability to change. You can't eliminate emotion, but you can channel the emotion to shape inspiration so that it doesn't undermine the transformation.