Being a positive influence on your team doesn’t have to be complicated. Anna O’Flanagan outlines a few actions you can take today to boost your team’s morale while enhancing your own wellbeing.

Are you a drain or a radiator on your team? If you identify more with the former, could you be ‘radiating’ more to boost the morale of those around you while also improving your own wellbeing?

Giving back – whether by volunteering, helping a neighbour, or simply offering kind words with no expectations – are proven to enhance overall wellbeing.

Fill the tank

Think about the members of your team as having an emotional tank. When the tank is full, they feel ready and able to engage. However, when their tank has been bled dry due to a mixture of circumstances, they are bound to struggle with motivation and enthusiasm.

We can’t change some of the external factors affecting us right now, but let’s focus on what we can influence. Try being a ‘radiator’ and see how it makes you and those around you feel. Here are a few ways to make that happen:

• Use your active listening skills and properly give colleagues your attention.
• Use affirming non-verbal communications like smiling and attentive body language when in the office and working over video calls.
• Give your colleagues honest and specific appreciation and praise. It needs to be genuine, consistent and spontaneous. Don’t wait for a one-to-one meeting – just pick up the phone or pop them an email as soon as you think of it.
• Provide recognition for work done well and the behaviours that got them there. Remember, work well done is not all about the result. So, even when the team has a perceived failure, acknowledge what they did well in an environment of learning, not blaming.

Maybe you are doing these things already, or perhaps you usually do them but have fallen off the wagon a bit recently. It’s important to accept that you won’t always be able to radiate. But, when you can, why not go out there and be someone’s radiator today? It could make be the difference between a colleague struggling and managing.

Anna O’Flanagan is Founder and Chief Squirrel at Red Squirrel Team Building.