CHAPTER 7

YOUR ENERGY IS CONTAGIOUS

1942 was a miserable year.

The world was enmeshed in war with unfathomable human atrocities. The Axis powers were pushing forward. Fear and hopelessness spread. Spirit and resolve, so critically needed, were in short supply. It was on the shoulders of Allied leaders to invoke a sense of fight—literally and energetically—into the populace.¹

When the 65-year-old Winston Churchill walked into 10 Downing Street as the new prime minister he was called an old man. That impression was short lived. He became known for his tireless energy and rousing calls to action. As he said in his 1940 address to the House of Commons, with Britain’s position precarious: “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.”

Across the ocean, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was in his third term in office, having already spent nine grueling years ushering America through the Great Depression, fighting for his sweeping New Deal packages and establishing Social Security. Still, FDR valiantly shepherded the nation through the war, his words buttressing the spirits of a nation. His inaugural address became increasingly prescient: “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

Churchill and FDR are embedded in our history as two of the greatest leaders of all time. They fortified entire nations with hope and resolve. They are also known for demonstrating indefatigable energy and passionate drive. This isn’t a coincidence.

Most renowned world leaders have been heralded for their energy, whether it takes the form of bombast or grinding tenacity. Consider Nelson Mandela, John F. Kennedy, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, or Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, to name a few. The leaders who have moved mountains have put their energy behind the push, and that energy has affected the course of history.

World leaders provide a salient example because their influence is vast, but we don’t have to look that high to get the point. We know the power that energy has for all leaders. We see energy as a necessity for any person trying to inspire others, rally for a cause, or drive action. In fact, we admire it in pretty much anyone—from our friend next door who appears to have more hours in the day to the UPS guy who delivers our packages with an extra-gregarious hello. Energy signals passion.

This section of the book explores passion as an inspirational quality. It’s not hard to understand: People who are passionate enthusiasts for what they do create passion in others. Passion is optimistic, exciting, bold, and captivating. Passion has a fiery drive to it, propelling forward momentum. Passionate people have an energetic field around them which others want to be caught up in. People with passion show conviction. We know where they stand. They get things done.

One of the reasons we value passion so highly is because we know how we feel when we have it. You may have had the experience where you’re new to a job or selected for a coveted project, and you’re in the zone: work humming, energy flowing, and creativity rolling. You feel like you can accomplish anything, like nothing will get in your way. This happens as well in our personal lives around things we truly care about, such as helping a community initiative or coaching our kid’s team. We care and we show it. We’re all in.

Most of us have also experienced the flip side: loss of passion. Our job has become stale or boring and we can barely concentrate enough to get through our daily work. We’re over the volunteer work we once enjoyed. Even basic tasks feel like pushing a boulder up a mountain, with the wind in our faces to boot. All work is hard work. Our energy feels depleted. We say things such as, “I don’t have the energy for this.”

In coaching, passion is a familiar topic, coming up frequently in sessions and workshops. Here’s what I’ve learned: Passion feels like meaning. People desperately want to find and maintain passion in their work and in their lives. Just as important, we want to work for passionate leaders. Passion is the precursor to personal investment.

Inspiring people share their passion with us. Inspire Path conversations can’t happen without the right level of passion—it makes them “zingy” as one of my friends says. It infuses energy into them, creating that lift we feel after an inspiring exchange.

Having heard passion discussed in so many contexts, I’ve broken down the factors behind our experience of passion in others.

Figure 7.1: Factors in Demonstrating Passion

In the next three chapters, I’ll cover in detail these elements of passion: energy, emotion, and conviction. We’ll also touch upon the right kind of passion—just enough to energize people, but not push them away. This requires awareness of self and others, and keeping the elements of passion in check.

We’ll start with energy because it’s the most visible form of passion, and you might argue the one that we react to the most viscerally. It’s almost as if we catch the energy of others like we would a cold—too many Debbie Downers sinks the mood. If you’ve ever felt that to be the case, then you’re right: Energy is contagious. The question then becomes: What are you spreading?

IF THE MOOD IS SPREADING, SHOULD YOU COVER YOUR MOUTH?

Social scientists and psychologists proved long ago that mood contagion is a real human condition. It’s been shown to spread through tone of voice, words, and nonverbal communication such as posture. In one 2000 study, participants listened to an actor read an emotionally impartial speech using either happy, sad, or neutral voice inflections. After the speech, participants were found to have moods that were congruent with the emotions expressed by the speaker. And when participants rated their attitudes toward the speaker, they said they liked the sad speaker the least.²

Studies have also shown that groups are affected by mood contagion. One study by Sigal G. Barsade at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School put participants into workgroups, and had actors embedded in the groups displaying high or low levels of pleasantness. The actors’ positive and negative moods infected both the groups and individual group members. Further, “positive emotional contagion group members experienced improved cooperation, decreased conflict, and increased perceived task performance.”³

As Barsade explained to me in an interview, “Emotional contagion is primarily nonverbal, but verbal also has an effect. What’s insidious about emotional contagion is that people don’t realize it’s happening. They don’t attribute their mood or behaviors as the result of someone else’s mood. They own it as their own and it’s almost automatic. A form of inoculation is knowing that mood contagion exists. You may still catch it but you can diminish it.”⁴

Study after study overwhelmingly shows that our mood affects others. Positive or negative, people can catch it. And when the person with the strongest mood is in a position of power, the contagion is flat-out viral. If your boss comes into the office with an angry look on his face, yells at his assistant, and slams the door, the mood is going down fast.

“To the degree to which someone has power, formally or informally, and you pay more attention to them, you are more likely to catch their emotion,” Barsade said. “That’s why it’s so important for leaders to consider what kind of emotions they’re injecting into the environment. If they come in worried and stressed, even if it’s not about their employees, what those employees take away is the catching of the worry and stress. Leaders have to be thoughtful about the emotions they bring in as they’re constantly observed.”⁵

So, our passion and energy creates passion and energy in others. It propels an emotional cycle. Researchers have found that leaders who are positive and pleasant are more likely to engage in transformational behaviors such as inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration. Their actions lead to greater optimism, trust, and creativity.⁶ This in turn creates better workplaces with passionate workers, who pass it on to their own teams. Authentically happy leaders, research would argue, are better leaders.

Energy fuels people to overcome significant obstacles, which is why it’s a salient issue in presidential campaigns. In companies, often the person who cares the most can push for the best results. In many organizations there’s a story of one committed worker—often not even a senior leader—who pushed to change a company for the better. One of my clients, now a partner in a consulting firm, pressed his company to launch an entirely new service line even though it wasn’t germane to the company’s core business. His passionate belief helped him to get agreement to research the proof-of-concept, and then to secure a short-term trial. Now he’s the partner in charge of an entire division, generating a sizable portion of the firm’s revenue. His belief in the idea swayed others to give him a chance. If he’d been lackluster about the idea, it would have gone in the “too hard” pile.

If any mood is contagious, positive energy can be downright infectious. People borrow it from others, internalize it, and make it their own. When we’re inspiring another person with our energy, that’s what we’re doing—lending our own passion so they can lift themselves up. Consider the phrases we use to describe inspirational communication: She “lifted my spirits,” he “gave me a boost,” she “pumped me up,” or my personal favorite, he “gave me a kick in the pants.”

The amount of energy we convey, whether in a one-on-one conversation or in front of a crowded auditorium, sets the benchmark for what other people will be able to feel. We are leading the way in showing how meaningful and important what we’re communicating should be for the other person. In this way, if we don’t feel it in ourselves we can’t possibly expect others to feel it in themselves. As one of my clients expressed after a less than enthusiastic discussion about his succession track at the company: “If they aren’t excited for my future here, how can I be?”

CONVEYING ENERGY CAN BE TRICKY

It would seem that this whole process is straightforward: We show energy, which lifts others. And yet it’s tricky. We’ve all seen what happens when someone else’s energy, even intentional and well meant, is not well received. There’s an out-of-synch feeling between the energy someone’s putting out and those on the receiving end. It can be off-putting and have a strong countereffect.

You may remember this happening with 2004 presidential candidate Howard Dean. Dean had been a frontrunner, but in his concession speech after losing the Iowa Caucus, he raised his voice to be heard above the noisy crowd. With his face red and sweating, he then let loose a loud scream, dubbed the “Dean Scream,” which made him appear unhinged. News outlets—and then comedians—replayed the footage. It was the first time most voters had seen Howard Dean. His campaign never recovered.

I’m sure Howard Dean believed he was rousing his fans in the room to fight another day. Observers who were there recalled a raucous room with Dean supporters pumping the candidate up. But what appeared to viewers outside the room was altogether something else.⁷ The energy differential was too great. Sitting on their living room sofas, having had little exposure to Dean, viewers were put off by his over-the-top enthusiasm. And unfortunately for Dean, in the age of viral information, he couldn’t get past it. (Not electorally anyway, but he did reprise his scream as a show of good humor at the 2016 Democratic National Convention.)

We see this same energy gap in less conspicuous settings. A few years ago, I coached several executives in a company to get their workforce aligned behind the corporate vision. There was a new, highly passionate and positive CEO on board. When I met with him, I was hugely impressed. Full of ideas, bursting with possibilities, he left me feeling like I couldn’t wait to get to work. His enthusiasm rubbed off on me. I bought in!

Then, I met his team of direct reports. It felt like someone had slammed the brakes, and hard. The team members recounted the company’s dysfunctions going back a number of years and outlined the inherent problems that leadership had ignored. They were, to a person, burned out, frustrated, and negative. Their energy was so low it was catatonic. When they looked at their new CEO with his brimming enthusiasm, all they could see was naïveté. They were having corporate organ rejection of the CEO, seeing him as someone who didn’t get it.

Energy is a good thing, except when it goes sideways. And showing the right amount of energy or passion can be harder than it appears. We want to be inspirational, but not over the top. We need to light a fire but not burn people out. We have to instill a sense of seriousness, but not be scary. And we mess these energy differentials up all the time.

Disclosing our energy isn’t unlike self-disclosure in general. We get uncomfortable when people overshare personal information. It’s TMI, as we say. When people undershare information, we can’t trust them. Most people figure out how to strike the balance through trial and error as they move about socially. We try to understand—and then match—the disclosure style of the other person. If we have a colleague who keeps her feelings close to the vest, we’re not going to vomit out our darkest insecurities over the watercooler. Typically, the more substantial the relationship, the more we reveal because we know how the other person will react. We test the relationship with small disclosures over time to see how sturdy and trustworthy it is. Similarly, we can test and gauge energy to see how it will be received. It requires us to notice the reactions of others and to observe how we convey our own energy.

Robert J. Vallerand, a social psychology professor at the University of Quebec and leading researcher in the area of passion, has developed a model of passion that may shed a light on why some passionate energy is attracting and some is off-putting.⁸ Called the Dualistic Model of Passion, it identifies two distinct ways that we experience passion: harmonious and obsessive. People with harmonious passion enjoy their work, which they keep balanced with the rest of their life overall. When it’s in their best interests to disengage from work and enjoy other activities, they can do it. Physically and psychologically healthy, they feel good about their work. High in self-esteem, they are creative, with high levels of concentration. These are the people who lift our own mood and energy. We like to be around them.

On the other hand, there are people who exhibit obsessive passion. They have an uncontrollable, knee-jerk urge to do a job, which leads them to feel more conflicted between their passion and the other activities in their lives. Obsessive passion leads to burnout and lower work satisfaction. Those who experience it tend to have lower self-esteem and exhibit more self-defensive behavior, such as aggression or overwhelm. These are the people who stress us out when we’re around them.

It’s a good exercise to question our own passion and see where it falls. Does your energy fuel you positively and helpfully, or does it cause stress and anxiety? If it’s the latter, we’re not only out of the inspiration zone, but we’re harming ourselves and probably need to make some changes.

We’ve all known people whose energy is discomforting. Energy has great power. We should harness it and use it. We can learn to shape it to fit the inspirational tone and nature of our communication situation. We can use mood contagion to work in our favor. And finally, we should safeguard it. After all, it’s not an inexhaustible resource. We have only so much of it, and when it goes, it’s missed.

MAKING YOUR ENERGY WORK FOR YOU

Energy conveys many inspirational qualities that we like to see in our leaders, our colleagues, and our friends. It creates a ripple effect and builds followership. It’s an important quality to exhibit. However, we only reap these benefits if we harness and adapt our energy to the situation and the people involved. Energy exuded well is catching; energy misfired is alienating. Here are some considerations to make sure we’re spreading the right feeling around.

Know the heart of it

For other people to experience energetic passion from us, we first need to recognize it in ourselves. Often, we are going through the motions in our busy days, and when we stop to think about what we’re trying to convey, it’s only to get our points straight. We usually don’t take the time to connect with the message, and to determine our emotional connection to it. When we want to inspire with our energy, this is the best place to start.

Finding your attachment to a message requires you to reflect on what you actually have energy around. It’s getting your head and your heart in the game. Now you may be thinking, “Many times I have to pass along a corporate message, and it’s not even mine! I don’t actually feel anything about it.” And I would respond that if you don’t care, then it’s likely that no one else will care either. It’s only by seeing the energy that you bring that others adjust their own energy. That’s why it’s contagious.

Here’s an example: I’ve coached many leaders at consulting firms over the years. As part of moving up in the ranks, consulting professionals need to learn how to sell and bring in new clients. Many people dislike this part of firm life. They got into consulting as subject matter experts in areas like finance or IT, and now they have to go out in the market and sell. They aren’t salespeople, and they don’t want to be salespeople. Consulting firms offer all kinds of training to help workers develop business and learn the skills to close deals as they approach senior ranks. Still, it’s hard to get past the fact that many consulting professionals don’t like to sell. And as we’ve been discussing, that shows.

In coaching consultants, I’ve seen one factor make the difference: when clients can communicate their emotional connection to what they’re selling. When they are able to feel truly energized and passionate about the content, selling no longer feels like heavy lifting. Then, many of their insecurities and fears fall away.

I think about a consultant in technology who was fired up about her firm’s solution to cybersecurity, or one in finance absolutely convinced that his firm could help stabilize the mortgage industry. When you go into the market with that kind of positive energy, others gravitate toward it. Just going to more networking events and handing out business cards isn’t enough. You have to believe strongly in what you’re selling. When you connect to that emotional core, you exhibit a mobilizing force.

I use this sales example, but it’s the same effect when we’re delivering a personal message one-on-one to inspire action, or to a group to gain buy-in. The act is the same: When we connect emotionally with the message, the energy comes naturally.

A good way to get clear and systematic about your energy is to make a situational intention around it, as we discussed in Chapter 2. Take a step back, pause, and consider: What gives me energy about this? What do I want my audience to feel? When you can identify what you feel most passionate about, what hits home, where you have the most conviction, or what’s at the heart of the message—then you can craft your communication to show the authentic energy you have for the message and the audience. The more in touch you are with a message, the easier it will be to convey it with resonance to another.

Calibrate your energy to your environment

Once you know where your authentic passion lies, you’ll need to calibrate it against the situation before you. As I outlined above, you don’t want to be so far away from your audience that they reject your message. Don’t be like the CEO who came off as a Pollyanna to a staff wallowing in negativity. Energy is a persuasive force. Use it as a tool of forward momentum to bring others along.

One way to think about this is to consider your energy on a scale of one to ten, and to do the same for your audience. Then, aim for an energy level that’s the average of those two scores. So if I am trying to persuade an employee to take on a new project, I may be a ten (very enthusiastic) and she may be a two (pretty skeptical). In order for her to hear me, I can dial my own energy down to a six. If I go in as a full ten, guns blazing, I run the risk of shutting her down. Instead, I aspire to model energy, but in a way that brings her along.

Now for the caveats: You might not always know another person’s energy level, and she might not be forthcoming. If that’s the case, take the easiest approach and ask! See what you can learn. If it’s a group, the individual members may differ. You can query the group as well. This isn’t an exact science. You have to use your intuition. Look for clues as you go. Receptive body language, heads nodding, and attention are good indicators of engagement. Posture is also a clue. Are people leaning toward you or pushing themselves away? When someone’s energy is too much for us, we often subconsciously get distance however we can.

Inspiring conversations create energy, but only if the other party lets them in. By calibrating your energy to the situation, while still infusing it, you create the connection that allows that spark to catch.

Put your energy on display

For some people, showing energy is straightforward. Their energy pours right from them. You know what they care about because it’s written all over their faces. It animates their body language. In others, it’s not so easy to discern. Either purposefully or unintentionally, they play their cards closer to the vest. They may not show their emotions readily, or express themselves very well. Sure, this type of reserve can work well in poker, but it interferes big time with an effort to infuse energy into a situation.

In business settings where we want to inspire, for the most part leaders need to emote more. We’re trained to show such stoicism and equanimity that others often miss what is meaningful to us. When we’re uncomfortable or nervous, we can become practically robotic. I’ve seen clients deliver spectacular news in a tone that connotes absolute neutrality, leaving everyone to wonder if it was good news at all. When I worked in PR, I would train leaders to speak with the media. You’d be surprised—or since you’ve seen them, maybe not—how non-emotive leaders can be on camera. It’s as if someone zapped their personalities. You can’t tell if what they’re saying is good news, bad news, or means anything to them at all. This gets worse with earnings news in an effort to appear staid, leaving one wondering whether the CEO is happy about the quarter. (If you can’t get to sleep, tune into corporate earnings webcasts.)

For many reading this, if you take the time to understand what you care about, then you’ll be able to touch upon and show your energy readily. For others, it may be helpful to consider how we convey passion in a way that others can read. People project energy by:

Speaking at an energetic rate of speech, rather than slowly and methodically

Using voice inflection and vocal variety instead of a monotone

Smiling authentically with their mouth and eyes

Animating their gestures, often using large ones to underscore points

Selecting energetic words that punctuate their enthusiasm, such as confident, excited, delighted, surprised, optimistic, positive, ready, pumped, energized, thrilled

If you’re wondering where you fall in displaying energy, ask someone for feedback or view yourself on videotape. With a critical eye, determine how much energy you bring to a situation that you care about. If you determine that your affect is flatter than you mean it to be, take one of the bulleted points above and try to do more of it. Don’t know where to start? I’d suggest making sure to smile more when communicating the positive. It’s an instant way to show that what you’re saying lights a fire in you—and can in others. (More on applying all of these bullet points in the next two chapters.)

Create attractor energy

In work situations, we do many hard things: We ask people to take risks, change behaviors, follow a vision, work harder, and hit goals. Without a driving energy, any of these become exponentially more challenging. As a leader, you are the one who models how much energy others should have for the task. They will care only as much as they see that you care. Your energy is a powerful tool of inspiration. Others see it and take it on, even beyond their awareness. Learn to harness your energy: Notice it, cultivate it, adapt it, and share it.

Energy creates more energy. It has an attractor quality—bringing people to us and to each other.