Research is now discovering that emotions are capable of affecting memory, perception and cognition. All of these things can influence how an employee performs at work.
When people are influenced by the moods of others, especially those in managerial positions, it can impact their behaviour at work. This is called “emotional contagion”. How we feel can spill out and infect other people, essentially making us walking mood inductors.
We even have cells in our bodies called mirror neurons which allow us to be in touch with how other people are feeling by simply observing them. Neuroscientists have recently discovered that empathy is driven by these mirror neurons which are located in the frontal cortex of your brain. Mirror neurons fire in the same way whether you’re watching someone do something or you are actually doing that same thing yourself.
At work, it is often the leader’s responsibility to set the mood for the rest of the team in the workplace. The emotions people bring to work are as important as their cognitive skills, and especially so for leaders. If you are a leader, consider that managing your moods is one of your chief responsibilities.
A good way to look at it is, your mood, positive or negative, will remain in a room long after you have left it and the mood you generate is directly related to how you make people feel.
There has been little research done on the ramifications of group emotions. If you consider the effects of emotional contagion, it is easy to assume that within the workplace groups are reflecting the influence of key emotional people within their team. Usually the leaders.
The key to stopping this emotional contagion is awareness, however often another person’s negative mood affects you unconsciously. If you realise that someone else’s bad mood is affecting you, you can control it. For this reason, making people, especially managers, aware of emotional contagion is vital. It is important to understand that when employees are exposed to the moods of leaders who are giving off feelings of anger or hostility, it can have toxic effects on their performance.
The same goes for feelings of confidence and enthusiasm. This is why it is so important for leaders to understand that they can utilise mood contagion to create a positive emotional climate for their employees.
When managers learn to control their own emotions and know the emotional triggers of their team, they can manipulate the atmosphere of their workplace.