I imagine most people might love the ability to determine what the temperature will be like on a certain day or being able to prevent rain from coming down right after you washed your car. Unfortunately, I don’t have any secrets to mastering the weather outside, but I have learned a few things about controlling the “emotional weather” inside your school or workplace.
By emotional weather, I’m talking about the vibe and feeling you get as you walk around your school. This comes from the behaviors of individual staff members, interactions between staff, interactions between staff and students, and interactions between students. Each of these behaviors and interactions can have an emotion tied to them. You can feel the joy emanating from a classroom of students that’s fully engaged in their lesson and you can clearly sense the stress from students and staff before a big test is coming up. Anybody can get a solid pulse of a school’s current emotional weather by walking through the halls during a passing period or popping into a few classrooms.
I’m certain that all administrators would love to be able to stop their staff members from feeling any stress or negative emotions, but nobody can control how others feel. Everybody’s thoughts and emotions are their own and can’t be managed by others. At the same time, you have the ability to control one person…yourself!
I can’t control how anybody feels or behaves on any given day, but I can control my own actions. Through these actions, I can positively influence how others are feeling and help develop a certain type of emotional weather around my campus. I do my best to be as positive as possible with those around me.
Here is some advice on how to positively influence the emotional weather of those around you:
- Be Present – We all have a ton of tasks to get done. Sometimes, the most impact actions you can take is walking the halls during passing periods and popping into classrooms.
- Be Mindful of Body Language and Facial Expressions – Regardless of what’s going on in your mind, make sure you’re outwardly portraying how you want others to feel. If you give off stress, that might bleed into others.
- Be Consistent With Your Messaging – Try not to get caught up in creating fancy new slogans or strategies too often. Otherwise, staff can get into the habit or waiting until the “flavor of the week” passes. Stay true to your mission, goals, and focus areas by regularly reinforcing them.
Good luck on influencing the emotional weather of those around you!
