Self-examination reveals many things, including your level of sincerity, which is a trait all enlightened leaders share. Sincerity is synonymous with genuineness, honesty, and authenticity. In his best-selling book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey presented the concept of emotional bank accounts.
An emotional bank account is a karmic storage for sincerity, kindness, courteousness, helpfulness, friendship, honesty, and other virtues. Each of us keeps this type of bank account with every person we have regular dealings with- family members, friends, colleagues, direct reports, superiors and others. Essentially, we could have hundreds of these accounts, depending on how many close relationships we create and seek to sustain. Whenever we show good behaviour toward the person we share the bank account with, we make a deposit. Whenever we show bad behaviour, we make a withdrawal. Every deposit and withdrawal represents a unit of trust. If we withdraw more than we deposit, we erode, and eventually empty out, the trust, confidence and credibility we earned with the person through good behaviour.
These emotional bank accounts are in essence the consequence of your ability for emotional awareness. The key elements of emotional awareness will make you a more effective leader – an enlightened leader, and they need to be constantly honed and strengthened. Furthermore, every time the human dynamics changes, you have to begin again to add to those emotional bank accounts. This ability is a learned skill – the skill of Positive Presence, which is your innate ability to adjust for and create a positive and energized mindset through conscious thought processes.
Using your skill of Positive Presence increases your awareness of your own emotions and your ability to manage them to create strong productive connections with your team. This highly positive, emotional connection creates a consistent sense of unity, harmony, and cohesion among team members that drives performance. The skill of Positive Presence and the Positive Presence behaviour competencies are key skills for maximizing organizational performance. Ignore them at your own peril.
CORPORATE HARMONY is grateful to Dr. Michael E. Frisina for his contributions to this entry.
Catherine is the President and CEO of CORPORATE HARMONY, providing virtual solutions for leadership development and organizational culture change. Her leadership and coaching experience as a Project Manager in an ever-changing, fast moving technological organization with unrelenting demands drove her to the realization that a positive mindset and strength-building behaviors are essential for today’s complex and chaotic organizational systems. CORPORATE HARMONY’s virtual platform of programs, coaching and performance measurement, is an innovative online technology of tested proprietary content. The world-class content of CORPORATE HARMONY’s Positive Presence Program develops the skill of ‘Positive Presence’ and the necessary ‘Positive Presence Behaviour Competencies’ for maintaining a positive and energized mindset and increased performance in today’s complex work environment, and leading to a culture of collaboration and connection. Catherine’s vision for Corporate Harmony is to bring the skill of “Positive Presence” to the corporate world as it becomes more complex, ambiguous and chaotic. Catherine is uniquely positioned to impact organizations’ productivity and long term success, with her powerful vision of eliminating bad stress from every workplace around the globe, bringing purpose into the people equation to promote healthy, productive and meaningful work cultures and turn the tide on the neglect of mental health on a global scale. Catherine is author of the book: “CORPORATE HARMONY – The Performance Link for Today’s Modern Organization” Catherine can be reached at: Catherine.Osborne@corporateharmony.ca or go to ‘contact us’ on our website www.corporateharmony.ca. Catherine is available for consultation, and can be reached by 519-695-3407.