Years ago, I was sitting in on a leadership meeting with a sales manager who had just come out of a pretty rough forecast review. You know the kind. The numbers weren’t where leadership wanted them to be, questions were coming faster than answers, and by the time the meeting ended, everyone looked like they’d aged a year in an hour.
We walked back to the sales floor together. Neither of us said much. He headed straight for his desk, dropped his notebook a little harder than he intended to, let out a sigh that probably came from his toes, and started answering email.
About twenty minutes later I happened to walk the floor. The energy had changed. Conversations were quieter. People who had been laughing before the forecast meeting were suddenly all business. One rep looked over at me and asked, “Everything okay?”
That stopped me.
Nobody had said anything to the team. Nothing had happened that they could point to. Yet somehow everyone knew something wasn’t right.
It reminded me that leaders rarely have private attitudes.
Whether we realize it or not, our teams are constantly taking emotional cues from us. They notice when we’re energized. They notice when we’re discouraged. They notice when we’re distracted, impatient, optimistic, or overwhelmed. Most of the time, they don’t need us to say a word.
They’re reading the room.
And, whether we like it or not, we’re usually the room.
You can’t control your team’s attitude.
You can’t control your team’s attitude. What you can control is the attitude you bring through the door every morning, into every coaching conversation, every pipeline review, every team meeting, and every one-on-one.
I think leaders sometimes put too much pressure on themselves to be positive all the time. That’s not what I’m talking about.
- Some days are hard.
- Sometimes the forecast misses.
- Sometimes a customer leaves.
- Sometimes corporate announces another change that wasn’t on anyone’s bingo card.
Pretending those things don’t bother you isn’t leadership. Neither is allowing your frustration to become everyone else’s.
I’ve had to learn that lesson myself more than once. There have been days when I’ve walked into a room carrying a conversation that happened an hour earlier, only to realize halfway through a coaching session that I wasn’t really coaching. I was replaying my own frustration, and the person sitting across from me had somehow become the audience for a meeting they never attended.
That wasn’t fair to them. It also wasn’t the leader I wanted to be.
These days, before I walk into my next meeting (especially if I’m walking out of a difficult one), I try to pause for just a moment and ask myself a simple question: “What do these people need from me right now?”
Over the years I’ve discovered that attitude isn’t about pretending everything is fine. It’s about deciding what you’re going to pass along.
Because whether you intend to or not, your team is catching something.
Choose wisely.