How do emotion and attitudes affect our perceptions of happiness in the workplace?

Positive psychology is a science that lies behind positive emotion in a person. This is because they are linked with the benefit that employees get in the organization such as improved health, longevity and a better quality of life. This is the action of the genes that react to different situations that they are facing over time in the workplace that affect their happiness, attitudes and others. In addition to this, positive psychology is always used in the workplace to motivate the employees by increasing their positive emotions such as happiness and satisfaction. However, such emotions are highly dependent on the behavior of the employer or those who are responsible to lead the employees. There are various ideas or practice that they foster that increase positive emotions among people (Wijewardena et al., 2014).

Fredrickson (2009) defines the forms positive emotions can take: joy, gratitude, serenity, hope, pride, inspiration, and love (Fredrickson, 2009). These emotions are crucial in our personal life but also vital in any organizational setting, as they can significantly impact performance, motivation, and engagement.

Hope in the organizational arena enables employees to overcome difficult times (i.e. 2008 crisis) and organizational change. Hope has been found to make workers stronger and more resilient in the workplace (Froman, 2009).

Acts of kindness in the workplace that bring joy and gratitude to employees can help them flourish, nourish, and sustain themselves through difficult and frustrating times (Froman, 2009).

When on the job we are assigned to new work, or forced by circumstances to look for a new job, we are faced with new challenges. These challenges can bring with them opportunities to learn new skills. These new found skills, learned on the new job, enables us to tap into an inner motivation and achieve a sense of excitement and purpose that people feel only when they are thoroughly involved in their jobs (Froman, 2009). Self-motivation, combined the newly acquired skills lead to productive and creative work outcomes (Froman, 2009).

Having pride and a sense of achievement are emotions that when shared with others can create, inspire, and kindle dreams of even larger achievements (Froman, 2009).

Froman (2009) explains how positive Psychology can constitute a Bridge to a Productive, Innovative, and Virtuous Workplace by focusing on five conceptual themes: strengths, virtues, and self-determination; emotional intelligence in the workplace; psychologic capital and positive organizational behaviour; organizational behavior, innovation, and change; and the virtuous organization (Froman, 2009). He emphasizes that organizations need to develop cultures of virtue, cultures built around principles of integrity, ethics, trust, and respect. By doing that, organizations bring out the best in their employees and are able to create conditions for their people to thrive and flourish in ways that bridge economic and human development (Froman, 2009).

Emotions in the workplace

Emotion is a response to an event that has a personal relevance because it is appraised as a threat or opportunity. Desmet (2019) explains that emotions are key to human nature, they represent our values, needs and desires. Emotions move us, they dictate how we plan our life and how we collaborate. Emotions foster well-being and are determinants of happiness.

Emotions are considered to be an important part of the daily lives people and help them survive the demands of the workplace. Emotions are considered as short lived experiences that help in bringing change in the thoughts of the people, their actions and physiological responses.

Emotions make people do something (Desmet, 2019). Such emotions occurs on the basis of some external and internal events that either occur in a short span of time or in long term. However, there are two different types of emotions, positive and negative emotions. An event that is appraised by a person as congruent to the values that they hold lead to positive emotions. On the other hand, an event that is not congruent to their values and goals will lead to negative feelings (Wijewardena et al, 2014). Same goes for the employees in an organization who face a change in their emotion due to the behavior and actions taken by the leaders. Thus, it is important to learn about the way leaders impact the emotions of the employees by their behavior because leaders play a wide role in the life of an employee in a workplace.

From the past 15 years an evidence based model has been developed that elucidates on the various active ingredients of creating well-being. This model is known as PERMA, such as Positive emotions, Engagement, Relationships and others. This model has been used to create positive emotions among the employees in the workplace. According to Wall et al. (2017) it is seen that there has been various impact of positive emotion on the personal, organizational and societal level. This includes workplace benefits as well the impact of positive emotion such as well-being, better health, job satisfaction and organizational resilience. However, the process of creating such positive emotions in workplace is not easy and involves a complex mixture of many things that needs to be developed. One of the way that can help create positive emotions among the people in an organization includes designing positive experiences such as pleasure, accomplishments and others. However, such experiences can be created by the top management of the leaders of the workplace (Berg & Karlsen, 2014). This is because they are the one that influence the activities and behavior of the subordinates by creating various kinds of environment.

George (2000) stated that leaders can create a family like atmosphere in workplace and change working condition. This may include various degree of discussion scenario and critically reflective practices. Further, in such as family like environment they should involve the subordinates in a collective problem solving situation, challenges and other situations in workplace. Laschinger et al. (2014) states that human resource is considered as an important part of every organization and has become a central concern of a leader. This is because it is the responsibility of the leader to retain the employees by creating supportive atmosphere and positive emotions among their subordinates. It is seen that a competent leader is able to mobilize the others around them and move the reform towards right direction to achieve their goal. In doing so they are able to create positive emotions among the subordinates by offering them adequate amount of support for their growth. Thus, caring and managing the human resource should be a primary concern of a leader and also a great challenge for them. This is because the behavior of the leader has a long reaching effect on the emotion of the employees either positive of negative. This is one of the most considered and important topic in behavioral theories of leadership. According to this theories it is seen that an effective leader should have the ability to exhibit both competencies of high task oriented and relation oriented. The second competencies that is relational competencies aims at creating an atmosphere of trust, showing high level of consideration and display empathy towards the followers, being a great humor and others (Romero & Cruthirds, 2006). All these behaviors that the leader shows has a great impact on the satisfaction level, health, attitudes and performance of the employees. These are some of the way through which a leader is seen to have an impact on positive emotion of the employee.

The impact of a leader on the positive emotion among the employees is also dependent on the type of leadership styles that they use. One of the style that a leader can use to create a causal relationship between the leader and the employee is transformational leadership. This leadership focus at activities that are in a collaborative form and help in creating an atmosphere in which employees can take part effectively. Further, such leaders use behavior that has an impact on the perception of the employees on workplace justice. This shows that the behavior of the leader has a direct impact on the behavior and emotions of the employee and how they feel. Transformational leadership style has been a successful in creating that positive emotion among people because such type of leaders are seen to use inclusive behaviors. This in turn help them to create a positive working relationships between the leader and the followers (Humphrey & Hawver, 2008). In an inclusive environment the subordinates work closely with the leader or top management and makes all possible decisions. This makes them feel wanted in the business and feel motivated to work with the team and offer their best efforts.

Goswami et al. (2016) analyzes the way project managers as leaders helps in encouraging and developing positive emotions among their team members while working for a project. For this purpose positive leadership has been discussed to be the most important area of concern. Positive leadership acts like an umbrella for various types of approaches such as authentic leadership, transformational leadership, ethical leadership, spiritual leadership that aims at creating only positivity. This is because such leaders are always focused at building togetherness and work relationship. They also focus at reducing anxiety among the employees. Further, the leaders also has the chance to plan and develop various types of activities with the team to make them feel enthusiastic about their work such as encourage the staffs to do playful and frisky things. They can also use some amount of humor in discussion or meetings. All these helps in creating positive emotions among the team members for being attached to their leaders. Some leaders or managers are also seen to use some kind of activities or positive behavior that helps in creating position emotions among the employees such as happiness, excitement and others.

We are creatures of emotions. We inherited emotions from our ancestors. Our ancestors had to learn how to deal with dangerous situations (fight and flight) and they had to seize opportunities. Our action urges are different from negative vs positive emotions. With negative emotions we want to act in one way, while with positive emotions we have different ways to go and different actions to take.

We have to always be aware of our emotions and think in context. There is no emotions that is useful in every situation. Positive psychology does not mean you have to be positive at all times. The most important thing to remember is that for most humans its positive psychology that allows us to get out of bad situations. Depression is the absence of positive emotions.

People experiencing more positive emotions than negative emotions are more flourishing and making contributions than people experiencing more negative emotions than positive emotions.

Positive leaders have the capability to intervene either informally or formally in the office place with the employees and create an environment of positive emotions. This can be done by staying close to the team, by rewarding and valuing their contribution, by making them feel included in work and others. This helps the employees to feel happy and satisfied in the workplace and with the kind of work they do. The employees become emotionally close to the organization and motivated to work.

References

Emil Berg, M. and Terje Karlsen, J. (2014). How project managers can encourage and develop positive emotions in project teams. International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, 7(3), pp.449-472.

Fredrickson, B. (2009). Positivity: Top-Notch Research Reveals the Upward Spiral That Will Change Your Life. New York, Three Rivers Press.

Froman, L. (2009). Positive Psychology in the Workplace. Journal of Adult Development, June 2010, Volume 17, Issue 2, pp 59–69.

George, J.M. (2000). Emotions and leadership: The role of emotional intelligence. Human relations, 53(8), pp.1027-1055.

Goswami, A., Nair, P., Beehr, T. and Grossenbacher, M. (2016). The relationship of leaders’ humor and employees’ work engagement mediated by positive emotions: moderating effect of leaders’ transformational leadership style. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 37(8), pp.1083-1099.

Humphrey, R.H., Pollack, J.M. and Hawver, T. (2008). Leading with emotional labor. Journal of managerial psychology, 23(2), pp.151-168.

Laschinger, H.K.S., Wong, C.A., Cummings, G.G. and Grau, A.L. (2014). Resonant leadership and workplace empowerment: The value of positive organizational cultures in reducing workplace incivility. Nursing Economics, 32(1), p.5.

Romero, E.J. and Cruthirds, K.W. (2006). The use of humor in the workplace. Academy of management perspectives, 20(2), pp.58-69.

Wall, T., Russell, J. and Moore, N. (2017). Positive emotion in workplace impact: the case of a work-based learning project utilizing appreciative inquiry. Journal of Work-Applied Management, 9(2), pp.129-146.

Wijewardena, N., Samaratunge, R. and Härtel, C. (2014). Creating better employees through positive leadership behavior in the public sector. International Journal of Public Administration, 37(5), pp.288-298.

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