Emotional energy is the most important personal resource for a leader. Leadership is demanding. Leading is a verb and that action requires a tremendous amount of energy, emotional energy.
If your emotional energy reserves are low, your leadership will suffer.
What is Emotional Energy?
Emotional energy is your internal fuel tank. It’s what keeps you motivated, resilient, and mentally strong. For leaders, high emotional energy is essential. It fuels your ability to inspire and guide your team. When you’re full of energy, you’re more positive, proactive, and effective.
Emotional Energy Drains
Several things can sap your emotional energy:
Troubles at Home: Personal issues and family conflicts can weigh heavily on your mind, leaving you drained.
Doing Too Much at Once: Multitasking and overcommitting can lead to burnout.
Feeling Like a Failure: Constant self-doubt and feelings of inadequacy can deplete your energy.
Worrying About Small Stuff: Focusing too much on minor details that don’t matter will waste your energy.
Emotional Energy Boosters
To keep your emotional energy high, think and act strategically:
Prioritize energizing activities: Engage in things that make you happy and relaxed, like hobbies, exercise, and spending time with loved ones.
Eliminate Energy Drains: Identify tasks and responsibilities that drain you and find ways to reduce or eliminate them. Delegate when possible and don’t be afraid to say no.
Practice self-care in your daily habits: Make time to get enough sleep, eat well, and have quiet time for your brain to relax. Purposely practice gratitude, take breaks, and prioritize good boundaries around your work-life schedule (this last one will take some effort, but the payback is huge).
Create a supportive environment: Surround yourself with positive people both at work and home. Foster open communication and a culture of mutual respect and understanding. Recognize and celebrate achievements…when was the last time you wrote a personal email or sent a handwritten card to someone congratulating them on an achievement or milestone?
Emotional Energy and Leadership
When your emotional energy is high, you’ll handle challenges better, inspire your team more, and maintain a positive outlook. Your positive energy will ripple across your team and multiply the potential for the entire organization.
What will you do today to protect and recharge your emotional energy?
More importantly, how will you use it to transform your leadership approach tomorrow?
p/c – yours truly at a small lake in Hillsdale, Michigan. An energizing place for some quiet time.
Have you ever looked at all the processes running in the background on your computer? You can see them in Task Manager.
Some of them are recognizable and necessary. But there are probably a bunch that don’t need to be there. Some may have been put there by advertising platforms, some may be remnants of old programs you used years ago.
Each one consumes your computer’s finite CPU and memory capacity. Each one is jockeying for position in the hierarchy of tasks.
If you’re able to take the time to identify and eliminate the unnecessary background tasks, your computer’s performance improves. Software runs faster. You can open and work on bigger files without waiting forever (measured in seconds nowadays) for them to load.
How many meaningless or unnecessary background processes do you have running in your life?
How many of these processes consume valuable emotional capacity in your head?
How many are sapping your energy, your creativity, your productivity, or your ability to think deeply about a subject?
Our minds are amazingly powerful. They can provide incredible clarity and understanding. They can energize and motivate us to push into new frontiers, explore our limits, and hone our craft beyond all outside expectations.
But if we allow our mind to be clouded, to waste its valuable processing power on dumb things, unnecessary background processes, or dramas that have nothing to do with us, all that amazing power is wasted.
Our understanding and motivation about what we’re doing, both now and in the future, will become cloudy and fragmented. It’s easy to see how this can lead to a sense of hopelessness…a sense that there’s nothing for us in the future except for more cloudiness and confusion.
Consider all the distractions we allow to get in the way of our clear thinking.
How many can we eliminate? How many can we channel in a productive direction, or remove entirely from our lives?
It’s worth our finite time to do a “background process audit” in our life. See just how much of our emotional capacity is being wasted without adding any real value to our lives.
It won’t be easy. These meaningless background processes are desperate to continue living in our head. This audit will require self-awareness, introspection, and sometimes difficult decisions about what to eliminate.
The payoff for all this effort?
Mental clarity for the things that truly matter, increased productivity, and a more hopeful view of our future.
The Hawthorne Effect refers to a psychological phenomenon where humans modify their behavior in response to being observed or studied. This effect was first observed in the 1920s and 30s during a series of studies conducted at the Western Electric Hawthorne Works in Chicago, hence the name.
The studies were designed to investigate the relationship between lighting conditions and worker productivity. But researchers found that regardless of changes in lighting, workers’ productivity improved when they knew they were being observed. This meant that the mere act of being the subject of an experiment or receiving attention could influence individuals to perform better.
It also means this powerful personal growth tool is available to you. It turns out that you are the observer you’ve been waiting for, the catalyst for your own transformation.
“You can’t learn to swim by reading a book about swimming. You have to get in the water.” – Unknown
The Burpee Quest
Funny thing about burpees: watching someone do a burpee makes it look super easy (barely an inconvenience). If a Crossfit guy tells you that a good warmup is 10 burpees per minute for 10 minutes, you might think that’s totally doable…until you try it. You’ll learn about muscles you haven’t used in years. You’ll be reminded that gravity is not your friend, and that you’re not as coordinated as you thought.
What if you start by doing 10? Not 10 per minute for 10 minutes. Just 10. Each day.
That’s a tangible and doable goal to start. You can observe (there’s that word) your progress and set incremental milestones for more. Maybe you move up to 20 per day the second week, 40 per day the third week.
A great way to keep track of your progress is to track your progress. Sounds simple…but most people skip the tracking. Tracking is your way to observe (there’s it is) your progress, and lets you become your own motivating force. Write the date and burpee count down on a piece of paper, in your favorite journaling app, or maybe in an Excel spreadsheet.
You are incrementally moving toward 100 burpees in a day. You’re tracking your progress and will start to see the significance of each step toward your goal.
There’s something else you can observe (that word again). Your body’s responses while you’re doing the exercise. It will get easier as you go. Easy? No, just easier. Your body (and mind) will begin to move to a higher level of performance. Your baseline capability will increase. Gravity still isn’t your friend, but you’re starting to learn how to partner with gravity to do the next burpee.
“Learning without reflection is a waste. Reflection without learning is dangerous.” – Confucius
It’s been 4 or 5 weeks since you started this quest. You’re now able to do 3 sets of 25 burpees each day. You haven’t reached 100 burpees yet, but you’re well on your way. If you’re like most people, you might observe (there it is) that you can lighten up a bit at this point. You’ve totally got this. You don’t need to push as hard to improve from here. Your goal is in sight. Don’t fall into this trap!
This is the moment to refocus your goal…push it out a bit…extend the finish line. You’ve already mastered the movements, now you need to apply discipline and blow past your original goal of 100 burpees per day. Parlay this achievement into the next goal?
Maybe actually using the 100 burpees as the warmup that Crossfit guy described. You’ve been working on just getting to 100 burpees in a day, but what’s the next exercise you can do after your burpee warmup?
Same process. Take it in increments, track your progress, celebrate your milestones, welcome to another new baseline, continue to improve, set the next goal.
How can you apply this to your profession?
Actively seek opportunities to acquire new skills. Embrace the awkwardness of not knowing exactly how to do something…and do it anyway. Remember that the satisfaction of learning and growth is uniquely yours. You, as the observer, choose the path of continuous learning. It’s the best way (the only way) to adapt to the evolving demands of your profession.
Improve your value in increments, track your progress, establish new baselines, continue to improve. Sound familiar?
Solicit constructive feedback from colleagues and mentors, appreciating external input as valuable guidance. However, remember that you are the only one who can internalize and implement these insights. Nobody will do it for you.
“Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterward.” – Vernon Law
Your Keys to Self-Improvement
Consistently integrate self-observation and improvement into your routine, recognizing that only you can chart the course of your personal growth.
Reflect on your experiences, setbacks, and successes, understanding that the satisfaction of improvement is a personal journey. You are the sole interpreter of your progress.
Remain flexible and open-minded, adjusting your methods based on feedback and new insights. As the observer, you continually determine refinements to your approach.
Embrace setbacks as opportunities for growth, understanding that the satisfaction derived from overcoming challenges is a deeply personal experience. Stay committed to your objectives, recognizing that only you can appreciate the significance of your efforts.
The Hawthorne Effect is your friend (unlike gravity). Use it and always remember that you are the observer, the driver, and the one who benefits most from your continuous improvement journey.
True renewal is a deliberate act of self-reclamation…
p/c: a recent sunset at our little homestead
Prayer to Saint Joseph the Worker
O Glorious Saint Joseph, model of all those who are devoted to labor,
obtain for me the grace to work in a spirit of penance for the expiation of my many sins;
to work conscientiously, putting the call of duty above my natural inclinations;
to work with thankfulness and joy, considering it an honor to employ and develop by means of labor the gifts received from God;
to work with order, peace, moderation, and patience, never shrinking from weariness and trials;
to work above all with purity of intention and detachment from self, keeping unceasingly before my eyes death and the account that I must give of time lost, talents unused, good omitted, and vain complacency in success, so fatal to the work of God.
All for Jesus, all through Mary, all after thy example, O Patriarch, Saint Joseph. Such shall be my watch-word in life and in death. Amen. – Pope St. Pius X
In life’s journey, we may find ourselves off course or losing track of our original path. We may even fail ourselves or those we love. It is in these moments that we are being called to profound self-discovery and renewal.
Renewal is not a passive occurrence. As the prayer to Saint Joseph states, it requires us “to work conscientiously, putting the call of duty above [our] natural inclinations.” True renewal is a deliberate act of self-reclamation. We have a duty to ourselves and those we love to put in the work that leads to our self-transformation.
It isn’t easy (nothing worthwhile ever is). It involves adapting, finding new ways, and being intentional about embracing change.
When we realize that ours is always a season of renewal, that we can “work in a spirit of penance for the expiation of [our] many sins,” then we will be able “to work with order, peace, moderation, and patience, never shrinking from [the] weariness and trials” of our self-improvement.
May the spirit of renewal be our guide, not diverting us from our journey but enhancing it. May we find the resilience within us to adapt, renew, and move forward with a fresh sense of purpose and determination.
Procrastination initiates a cascade of preventable urgencies, turning manageable tasks into overwhelming burdens and sowing seeds of chaos in our future.
Few things strike fear into the hearts of students quite like the term paper.
The teacher lays out the assignment – a substantial research paper requiring thorough analysis and a minimum of 5000 words. Oh yeah…and half of your grade in the class will be based on how well you do on the term paper. You have until the last week of the semester to get it done.
You think about the topic. You might even jot down some notes on your phone about how you’ll approach it. But there’s no need to rush on this assignment. You have plenty of time. Besides, your friends are heading out to get some tacos and margaritas at your favorite Mexican restaurant. This term paper can wait another day.
As the weeks go by, a creeping feeling of impending doom grips your subconscious. You haven’t started work on that term paper. Growing anxiety and stress become unwelcome companions as the deadline looms closer, and you realize the gravity of the task at hand.
Unfortunately, you have other things on your plate that need more attention. Ironically, many of these more-urgent items are other long-term projects that you had chosen to delay…until now.
The urgency of the term paper magnifies as the deadline inches closer. The once-manageable project becomes an overwhelming burden.
You start to question the fairness of the assignment. How can this teacher expect me to write 5000 words on this topic when I have all these other classes to manage and so little time to get it done?
A cascade of preventable urgencies engulfs your life, leaving you in a world of self-inflicted chaos.
Sound familiar?
The term paper saga is a small-scale reflection of the self-inflicted busyness and chaos in our lives.
Only a disciplined and methodical approach to our tasks can break the grip of procrastination. Our bias must be toward thoughtful and immediate action, not mindless delays to another day.
The time to start work on that long-term project is now, not tomorrow. The time to continue work on that long-term project is tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day after that.
Procrastination is a choice. Each delay we accept sows seeds of chaos in our future. Every task we postpone adds to the burden our future selves must bear.
The pursuit of excellence is always a journey worth taking. Do you have what it takes?
It’s an unfortunate truth that a large cohort of our society defines their success as doing the minimum. For them, success means not failing (or being seen to fail).
They’re okay with mediocrity, inefficiency, and ineffectiveness. They believe they can’t make a difference anyway, so they welcome the warm embrace of the status quo. They take comfort in joining the flock of mediocrity.
Do you find success in simply avoiding failure, or are you one of the rare renegades who can’t stand mediocrity?
In a landscape where inefficiency and ineffectiveness are accepted norms, there’s a shrinking community of individuals who see an opportunity for improvement. They envision a future defined by hard work, creativity, and continuous efforts to break free from the shackles of the status quo.
These unsung heroes view mediocrity as a chance to make a difference. They are willing to undertake the hard work necessary for transformation. These passionate individuals are the driving force behind organizational change, pushing boundaries and overcoming obstacles in the relentless pursuit of excellence.
They are willing to try.
They’re willing to risk failure, often multiple times, to pull themselves and their organization kicking and screaming toward a better future.
In a perfect world, organizations would recognize and elevate these passionate individuals, recognizing their contribution.
Unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect world. Status quo is like a warm blanket. Those who threaten to take away that blanket are often seen as a threat. The well-organized flock of mediocrity is a powerful deterrent to new ideas and improvement.
Do you have what it takes to be one of the renegades? One of the unsung heroes?
Are you willing to toil in relative obscurity, pushing back the walls of mediocrity, making room for excellence in their place?
Few are up to this challenge. But organizations count on these renegades for their success everyday…even if they don’t realize it.
There isn’t a human being on this planet who can carry an entire organization themselves…
Whether you run a Fortune 500 company or a one-person shop, your ability to delegate will be the difference between success and failure. Delegation may be to an employee or a trusted vendor.
Delegation allows you to multiply yourself. It also provides an opportunity for your direct reports to grow within your company.
Right about now, you should be nodding and saying, “Obviously, Bob, tell me something I don’t know!”
So, you understand the importance of delegating. Awesome!
Consider these questions about what you’re delegating, based on the way some managers and company owners I’ve worked with over the past 35 years view the topic:
When you delegate, are you focusing on your schedule, or on your direct reports’ growth?
Do you view delegation as the art of offloading tasks you don’t want to do, or tasks that are better suited to the expertise of one or more of your direct reports?
Do your direct reports own a specific role or job that’s critical to your organization, or are they merely one of your assistants, waiting for a list of today’s tasks to come from you?
If you draw a flowchart of how your organization functions, how many of the process lines route through your head where some type of decision or approval takes place before the process can move to its next step?
How many employees do you have waiting to talk to you? Do you feel empowered by how long the line out your door is each day?
When faced with a crisis, or a short-term deadline, do you pull back all that you’ve delegated so you can do everything yourself to make sure it’s right?
When you delegate the responsibility for a task to an employee, do you trust them enough to also delegate the authority they need to own that task? If not, why not?
I worked with a manager many years ago who told me how great it was that he had a line of people waiting to see him every time he came back to his office. He said it was the first time he had felt important in his life. Wrong answer, Mr. Important Guy!
I worked with another who told me that, “These people (referring to pretty much everyone in his department) don’t work well under pressure. Whenever we have a tight deadline on a deliverable, I usually stay late and get it done myself. That way I know it’s right.” Wrong answer, Mr. Martyr!
There isn’t a human being on this planet who can carry an entire organization themselves…even though many try. Sometimes, they even fool themselves (and others) into thinking they do it successfully.
The power of any organization comes from its ability to properly delegate, multiply its talent, and foster employee growth. By the way, sometimes the cost of that growth is allowing your employees to make mistakes, or to successfully complete a task in a different way than you would have.
Get delegation right, and everyone wins. Get it wrong, and your employees will stop learning. Their motivation will wane and your organization will ultimately fail.
The accounting definition of goodwill describes it as the established reputation of a business, quantifiable by taking the fair market value of the tangible assets of a company, subtracting that amount from the full purchase price, blah, blah, blah.
The accounting definition is important, but the goodwill I’m interested in is your personal goodwill, which is measured with the answers to these questions (in no particular order):
Do you have a personal reputation as a good person?
Are you a person who can be trusted?
Are you reliable?
Do you work with others based on honesty and integrity first, above all else?
When people describe you to others, do they do so fondly or derisively?
Are you a person who people want to be around?
Do you repel people, or gather people?
Do you have a track record of acting fairly in all situations?
Do you serve others first?
When the proverbial chips are down and everything is going wrong, can others rely on you to rise above the chaos, identify root causes, and get to work solving the problems?
Are you known as the person who runs from trouble?
Are you the one who looks to blame rather than solve?
The answers to these questions will matter more to your long-term success than any college degree or career accomplishment you may achieve.
Your actions and attitudes will show people your answers more vividly than anything you say.
It’s easy to say words like honesty, integrity, trustworthiness, or empathy. The real test is how you act and what you choose to do, whether or not other people are watching.
Show me a team of people who don’t value their own personal goodwill or that of their teammates, and I’ll show you a team that fails 99 times out of 100.
The most important choices you’ll make in life are the ones that either add value to, or take value away from your personal goodwill.
Choose wisely. Your happiness and success depend on it.
“If you get your ego in your way, you will only look to other people and circumstances to blame.” –Jocko Willink
Here’s a thought experiment…
Looking back over the past few weeks (or months, or years), how many times did you blame:
someone
some thing
traffic
an injury
a disability
the weather
the economy
the government
your boss
your employee
social media
a company
a bad memory
anything but yourself?
No matter the subject, there are plenty of candidates for our blame…as long as we can aim it outward.
Our ego prefers blaming “the other” rather than accepting responsibility. Life’s easier that way.
Blame doesn’t just apply to things that happened in the past. Blame is most powerful (and crippling) when it prevents something from happening in the future:
I won’t be able to make it out there tomorrow. The traffic is just too crazy at that time.
I hate this job, but I don’t have time to learn a new trade.
I’d love to help you move, but with my bad back, I wouldn’t be very helpful.
There’s no way I’d ever start my own business in this economy. Besides, who needs all the government regulations and hassle?
It’s way too cold out there to go for a walk today.
I’d love to travel more, but there’s no way my boss would ever give me the time off.
How many times have you used blame to avoid doing something new, or something that could fail?
Blame is useful when it establishes a foundation for improvement. When it represents a first step toward identifying root causes that can be solved.
Beyond that, blame has very little value, except stroking our ego (and keeping us nice and warm in our cacoon of status quo).
Grandpa Bob Encouraging Leadership 
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