Energy can be described as a feeling you have, a charged or emotional thought you have, the way your body feels, or even the way the room feels in a meeting. You have energy. Your team has energy. The company, your family, and the world have energy. Each person’s and each team’s energy mingles and mixes together and has a resulting impact — sometimes positive, sometimes negative, and sometimes neutral.
If you are a manager, is it very important to have awareness around your own energy, to be willing to see the flow of energy of your team and, when needed, have a conversation with your team about the impact of their energy on team and individual balance.
This is where awareness as a business skill becomes important for leaders and managers. When you have awareness around your behaviors and some of the behaviors of your team, then you can see the impact these behaviors have in terms of the energy or lack of energy people might have, which directly impacts both the quality and quantity of work produced.
As a leader of people, you are in a unique position to be able to see the behavior of your team, which also means you have a choice to see where and when the energy clogs or gushes. You also have a choice to have an intentional conversation about what is happening for the benefit of both the individual and the team.
There are many signs of energy imbalance, some easier to see and address than others. Most times at work, these imbalances show up as stress behaviors. Managers might notice lack of engagement, defensive behavior, poor collaboration, and ongoing health issues. Interestingly, both too much or too little energy can have a negative impact on teams and outcomes.
Too little energy leads to behavior in which people are either unable to engage or choose to be under-engaged, too much energy creates behaviors in which people are either over-engaged or choose to be enraged. The ideal energy state is that of sustainable energy, a scenario when individuals are able to sustain or balance times of scarce or abundant energy circumstances, resulting in a healthfully engaged state of being.
There are certain markers to each energy state that through developing the skill of awareness leaders can learn to recognize and address before individuals experience burnout or fully disengage from their current role and consider moving on.
UNABLE TO ENGAGE
This type of energy can take the appearance of “burnout” and is usually driven by inability or fatigue from managing too much change and stress. Many times this person may be struggling with multiple and/or major health issues, which results in them missing work or being distracted while at work.
UNDERENGAGED
This type of energy can take the appearance of a “victim” and is usually driven by lack of clarity in roles/commitments or low self-confidence. Many times this person is totally lost and overwhelmed with the work and unable to ask for support or assistance.
OVERENGAGED
This type of energy can take the appearance of a “martyr” and is usually driven by fear of not being “good enough”. Many times this is the person who takes it all on and is unable to do it all (or do any of it well).
ENRAGED
This type of energy can take the appearance of “passive aggressive” and is usually driven by lack of communication skills and/or an inability to express one’s thoughts and feelings. Many times this person is unsettled or angry about changes at work, volume of work, or type of assignments, and is lacking context between action and big-picture vision.
HEALTHFULLY ENGAGED
This type of energy can take the appearance of easy joy and light heartedness, with a positive “We’re in this together” attitude. Healthfully engaged people are able to clearly prioritize commitments, have open conversations about demands, and can identify stress triggers. They might have peaks of imbalance, but are able to understand the end point and are clear about what they need to do to sustain energy and engagement in those times.
There is no right or wrong way to begin talking to your team about energy states of imbalance. If you recognize any of the markers, have a conversation — an authentic conversation about what you have noticed. Try using opened ended questions to invite conversation and use phrases like: I’ve noticed (fill in the blank), tell me what is going on and is there is anything you need?
Regardless of the actual energy state many times people just need to talk it out and feel supported by leadership. The choice is yours to manifest a balanced energy.
[Note: This post originally appeared in HuffPost]