Written by: Marcus Cecil, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Personal Energy
Everyone has energy. To be clear I’m not speaking of energy in a scientific, or even a metaphysical, sense. I’m speaking of the energy we feel in ourselves and others. Call it a person’s mood, call it the atmosphere people create around themselves. It’s about how people speak, how people look, how people interact. It’s also about how people are in the moment, not necessarily who they are at their core.
Your energy propagates and interacts with other people’s energy very much like the ripples of stones thrown into a pond.
Your energy is typically a reflection of how you feel at any point in time. You may be able to display a different energy from that which your emotional state would imply, particularly in an environment in which you are used to showing a façade. But you won’t be able to do this for long… most people have an uncanny ability to spot lack of authenticity, even if they may not quite be able to explain it.
Now energy is just energy – it can be used for multiple purposes. It’s really up to each person to decide what to do with it: the same energy that can produce fantastic outcomes can also be very detrimental to those same outcomes. As definitions of positive or negative are very dependent on the value system of the person judging, in this article I will simply refer to “positive energy” as energy that helps achieve what you want to achieve.
Energy In Teams
A team is composed of people with very different personalities and experiences; people who will come together with varying degrees of energy depending on their emotional state. Each of these team members will choose, sometimes consciously yet often unconsciously, to use energy as they see fit to their environment. And this is where leadership energy comes into play.
Seeing a leader’s energy as the potential to cause change in others immediately highlights the importance of managing it.
Leadership energy is the energy you exude at any point in time in your capacity as a leader. It is typically managed with two goals in mind: creating an environment in which the prevailing energy supports the pursuit of the team’s purpose and helping each team member direct energy towards that purpose.
It might sound obvious but it’s worth stating that for a team’s energy to be channelled towards the pursuit of a common purpose, the leader’s energy must first be managed. The use to which you as a leader put your energy will be seen by others as a model to follow… whether they realize it or not.
And while I don’t want to reduce leadership energy to a mathematical formula, simply put you must have the appropriate quantity and quality of energy to be able to share it. Imagine a glass that is almost empty, and that your energy is measured by the liquid in the glass. In this scenario, you are more likely to be absorbing energy than sharing it. You will crave the energy for yourself, simply because you don’t have enough. Now imagine the glass to be full to the brim – as you accumulate energy the glass will overflow, so you can easily share energy with others. But make sure that you are sharing the energy you want to share – “positive energy” as per my earlier definition.
So here are some tips for boosting the appropriate quantity and quality of energy for yourself and for those around you.
1. Boost energy: Know your rhythm and triggers.
You probably know pretty well already when you are most energized during the day: are you an early-morning person? a late-afternoon person? Get to know your rhythm and adapt to it. Focus on your most challenging activities when you feel most energized, do the routine stuff at other times. Let other people know your rhythm… and get to know the rhythms of people interacting closely with you.
Many people can also be triggered into lower energy cycles – interacting with a certain person, listening to a certain type of music, stress building-up, you name it. Get to know your triggers and actively try to avoid them. Reflecting often and learning to live more consciously are good ways to make this happen.
2. Boost energy: Allow time for recharging.
Everyone’s energy fluctuates throughout the day, and often even throughout the week. Recognizing that energy levels aren’t directly controlled by anyone is a great step in allowing people the time to replenish when they ‘are low’. So, create a culture in which taking breaks during the day is not only acceptable but desirable. Allocate physical spaces where people can relax, or even take a power nap, in order to replenish.
3. Boost energy: Be aware of your ripple effects.
The impact your energy has on others may sometimes be very obvious. Let’s say you are upset about something, and you vent your frustration on others by challenging everything your team presents to you. You will probably realize yourself that there is a causal relationship at play.
Often though, ripple effects aren’t so obvious, particularly when they interact with other people’s ripples. Let’s say that, with the best of intentions, you insist a team member who appears exhausted take a day off despite the team being overloaded. Great idea you think, yet perhaps the person can’t find rest at home. Next day the person looks even more exhausted. You feel frustrated, the rest of the team feels you gave special treatment to one person. And the undesirable ripple effects build up quickly. So, make a habit of thinking through the potential outcomes of your ripple effect.
4. Boost energy: Focus, focus, focus…
As a leader, you play a key role in focusing your own and everyone else’s energy towards common goals. In my experience, focusing energy can best be achieved by being an authentic leader.
Be well aware that focusing energy does not mean that everyone should always be aligned towards the same use of energy. And it certainly doesn’t mean that your energy must prevail over everyone else’s. As traditional ‘command & control’ leadership models have shown, compliance is the best you can hope for if you aim to prevail over others. People will tend to do exactly what they are told to do, and little else. Applying such a leadership model will diffuse everyone else’s energy rather than bringing it into focus for a common purpose.
Another way in which energy is typically dispersed through lack of focus is by confusing activity with productivity. Being active simply means you are doing something, anything; whereas productivity implies you are doing something that contributes to common goals. Obviously, the more intertwined the team is, the more productivity becomes something that requires team focus. As a leader, you can increase team productivity significantly by mingling the energies of different players to achieve something more than the sum of the parts. Think of yourself as an alchemist!
5. Boost energy: Create a baseline “positive energy”.
Creating habits that continuously replenish you with energy that reflects who you want to be and what you want to achieve sounds appealing, doesn’t it?
Well, there’s no secret here: the same behaviours that will make you more likely to be happier will help you be “positively energized”. Regular sleeping habits, healthy eating, exercising, practicing yoga or meditation, changing negative narratives circling around in your mind… all will help. Avoiding too many mood-altering substances will also help… you know coffee, tea, nicotine, alcohol, etc. And actively pursuing happiness can also make a big difference to the energy you propagate.
Interested in learning more?
If you’re not fully convinced yet, bear in mind that a study published in the Harvard Business Review in 2007 concluded that people who learnt to manage their energy consistently outperformed those who didn’t. In fact, more than 2 out of 3 people who learnt these skills reported improved productivity, improved performance, and better relationships at work. The study also highlighted the importance of balancing energies in a holistic way – energies connected with the body, mind, emotions, and spirit.
“Let your unique awesomeness and positive energy inspire confidence in others.” [anonymous]
Are you in doubt how to get started managing your energy to become a more effective leader? Often it will help to have someone mirror back to you how your behaviours are perceived by others, and indirectly how your energy impacts others. Your ripple effects may not be immediately obvious to you, but with the help of an executive or leadership coach you will soon understand them… and learn to use them to become a more authentic leader!
Marcus Cecil, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Marcus Cecil is a life coach and a career mentor, helping successful corporate highflyers and business owners transform their lives radically to achieve more fulfillment. His approach to personal transformation, the 9 Steps to Conscious Living, is based on raising self-awareness to support a more purpose-driven life.
As a boutique global leadership development firm partner, Marcus is also a leadership mentor and business transformation facilitator for large corporations. His approach to fostering business change is based on a purposeful leadership framework – aligning strategic goals, culture, organizational structures, and leadership behaviors to an overall corporate purpose.
Before becoming a full-time coach and consultant, Marcus had a successful career in business, working for 20+ years at Fortune 500 corporations around the world. He has lived in 8 countries and has a solid understanding of what it takes to work effectively and enjoy life across cultures. He applies his lifelong experience to help both private and corporate clients find more holistic success. His mission is to raise the world’s level of self-awareness, one leader at a time.
