Ready to achieve emotional success?

So many of my conversations lately are with exhausted healthcare leaders who are very concerned about their teams. They worry about their team’s wellbeing, stress levels, and susceptibility to burnout. Retention is a huge issue pretty much everywhere, and recruiting new team members is challenging as well. At the same time, leaders are concerned about patient outcomes and their budgets. They want to know how to help both themselves and their teams get back to a place where everyone feels seen, valued, and engaged – connected to both each other and their purpose. There isn’t an easy solution, but we can leverage three key emotions to get the ball rolling in the right direction.  

1. Lean Into Gratitude

“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.” – Cicero 

Gratitude is a great place to start, even when (and especially when) things are tough. For exhausted teams, it also has the huge bonus of being easy to do and intrinsically motivating. Dr. Sara Algoe calls it the “find, remind, and bind” emotion. In gratitude, we find the good in our lives, are reminded that this good exists outside of ourselves, and this binds us to the people who are the source of this goodness. Gratitude makes us more generous, compassionate, and optimistic. And the recipients and witnesses of our gratitude are similarly impacted. Our relationships are strengthened, ensuring we have the support we need in challenging times. Pretty powerful stuff from a simple thank you.  

Where to start: 

• At the start or end of each day, set aside a moment for gratitude. Think of three good things in your life. These can be small to start – your morning coffee, a beautiful sunset, a coworker who was kind to you. This practice helps make gratitude a habit, flipping your thought process from what is going wrong to what is going right. If you’re someone who likes to journal your gratitude, download our free Gratitude Toolkit here. 
• If it feels hard to think of something you’re grateful for, try going through the motions to start. Make it a point to say thank you for every small kindness (someone holds the door for you in the rain, a team member delivers a report on time, a colleague greets you with a warm smile.) Eventually, these small kindnesses will be easier to spot, until suddenly you’ll see them everywhere.  
• If you are grateful for certain people in your life, let them know! You can tell them how much you appreciate them or write a note of gratitude to increase the impact. Wambi makes it easy for patients, team members, and leaders to share their appreciation, initiating a virtuous cycle of gratitude across organizations. Sharing gratitude with others will make their day, and yours, too. Use the Carepostcard.com to send a Wambi note of appreciation today. 

2. Cultivate Compassion 

“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” – Dalai Lama  

Like gratitude, compassion makes us feel good, activating the pleasure and reward centers in our brain. It strengthens our relationships and makes us more resilient to stress. Compassionate workplace cultures have been linked to improved collaboration, increased employee engagement, and reduced burnout. When we move to ease another’s suffering, we also heal ourselves. And compassion can spur gratitude and vice versa. These superpower emotions build on each other, creating environments that foster deep connection and a sense of belonging.  

Where to start: 

• Look for commonalities with others. We tend to feel most compassionate towards those we see as similar to ourselves in some way. But we can hack the system by always looking for the things we have in common. For example, your new coworker may have a very different background from your own, but you might both love the same sports team. Leaders: learn more about the importance of being compassionate to new coworkers on page 5 of our Resilience Workbook. 
• Think about the people who have supported you through challenging times. This one has a double bonus – you’ll likely feel gratitude for these people (write them a thank you note!), and you’ll also feel more compassion for others who are suffering and in need of support.  

• Try Lovingkindness meditation. This mindfulness practice involves repeating a series of phrases to wish another well. Examples include, “may you be happy. May you be healthy. May you be safe. May you live with ease.” With time and practice, this form of meditation can significantly increase feelings of compassion, both for self and others. You can find guided examples here and here.   

3. Enable Authentic Pride

“You were designed for accomplishment, engineered for success, and endowed with the seeds of greatness.” – Zig Ziglar 

It may feel odd to throw pride into the mix with gratitude and compassion. After all, it is one of the seven deadly sins. But as Dr. David DeSteno notes in his book, Emotional Success, that negative connotation stems from conflating pride with arrogance. Most of us can feel the difference between these two when we think back on our achievements. Feeling authentic pride in our accomplishments increases our motivation and our ability to persevere against incredible odds. It also encourages us to help others by sharing our expertise, inspiring gratitude in those we’ve helped. In the workplace, we know that praise for work done well is a key driver of engagement. The pride triggered by this recognition helps our team members feel like they are contributing in a meaningful way, connecting them to purpose. 

Where to start: 

• Recognize team members for work done well! Make sure your praise is timely, specific, and focused on effort as opposed to ability. Wambi gives users the ability to share meaningful recognition in the moment and to amplify its impact by elevating that praise across your organization.  
• Keep a journal to track your own goals and successes. This allows you to feel pride in your past accomplishments, as well as anticipate the pride you’ll feel when you reach future goals. Make this exercise even more powerful by showing yourself compassion when you fall short. Bonus points if you share your gratitude with the people who help you along the way! 

These three emotions of gratitude, compassion, and pride are a powerful combination. As Dr. Barbara Fredrickson notes, they build on each other to create upward spirals of positivity, broadening our view of what is possible. They inspire creativity and innovation. They help us persevere as we solve seemingly impossible challenges, all while feeling seen and connected to others. At Wambi, we see this every day as our clients use our platform to elevate these emotions, enabling their team members to be their best selves. We’re inspired by the results, and we think you will be, too. 

For more ideas, check out these great resources: 

• Greater Good Science Center: Gratitude Defined, Compassion Defined 
• Robert Emmons, 10 Ways to Become More Grateful 
• Jill Suttie, Can Practicing Gratitude Boost Nurses’ Resilience? 
• Kira Newman, Why You Should Love Thy Coworker

As our Product Evangelist, Mel brings over 13 years of experience to support the growth and development of Wambi’s sales team as they seek to help healthcare organizations create cultures of appreciation and kindness. She is committed to helping both her team and Wambi’s clients achieve their business objectives while living Wambi’s values of compassion, imagination, gratitude, fearlessness, and joy. Mel’s sales experience spans healthcare, technology, legal, and academic content solutions. She has been a consistent top performer and is most proud of her work fostering innovation, evolution, and team cohesiveness in each role. Mel grew up in West Michigan, where she still lives and enjoys running through the beautiful wooded dunes. She received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan. When she’s not exercising or spending time with her family, you can find her indulging in her love of learning about anything and everything.

• Connect with Mel on LinkedIn 
• Learn more about the Wambi platform

Are you the type of leader who performs well under pressure, is in tune with your teams’ emotions even though they aren’t vocalized, and/or prioritizes self-care to combat burnout? If you answered “yes” to any of the following questions, well then, congratulations! You are exhibiting high levels of emotional intelligence.  

Emotional Intelligence (EI), or the Emotional Quotient (EQ), is “the capacity to be aware of, control, and express one’s emotions, and those of the people around you.” Coined by American psychologist, Daniel Goleman, in his 1995 book, ‘Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ’  emotional literacy is critical to leading a thriving workforce. And unlike IQ which evaluates intelligence through standardized testing, emotional intelligence can be learned and developed by anyone at any time. In fact, improving  emotional intelligence should be considered an ongoing company and personal goal, especially for leadership. When examining EQ as a form of social currency, consider this: 80-90% of the competencies that differentiate top performers from low performers are in the domain of emotional intelligence. 

Leaders with low emotional intelligence are typically resistant to change, demanding, confrontational, critical, and passive. A leader with low emotional intelligence leader can contribute to poor internal alignment and a decrease in staff engagement and productivity, whereas leaders with high emotional intelligence are usually the leaders that nobody wants to leave. High EQ leaders are distinguishable by their enthusiasm, patience, consistency, decisiveness, and warmth. A study by Initiative One found that workers are 400% less likely to leave a job if they have a manager with high EQ. For organizations suffering from retention problems, nurturing emotional intelligence among leaders can be a turning point when addressing turnover.  

Want to see how much turnover is costing your organization? Calculate your turnover costs with the ROI calculator. 

There are two types of EQ competencies: 

1. Personal Competence: your relationship with yourself. Those with strong personal competence have the self-awareness to healthily name and navigate their emotions and can self-manage their emotional states in a calm and collected manner. 
2. Social Competence: your relationship with others. Those who have high social competence  handle interpersonal relationships empathetically through social awareness and relationship management. 

Great leaders display both of these! Personal competence leads to more emotional resilience and social competence helps leaders cultivate individual, team, and organizational success without compromising their own well-being in the process.  

1. Self-Awareness 

Emotional intelligence is rooted first and foremost in our own emotional self-awareness.It’s acknowledging our strengths and weaknesses, naming our emotions, and still possessing a strong sense of self-worth. Those with strong self-awareness can provide valuable coaching and mentorship for others, as well as manage conflicts diplomatically. 

Ways to be a self-aware leader: Model a positive attitude but don’t fall prey to toxic positivity. Your staff wants to see vulnerability in action and nothing is more vulnerable than taking accountability. Don’t be afraid to own up to, and learn from, your mistakes. 

2. Self-Management 

Self-management, also known as self-regulation, is about how you control your emotions, inner resources, and abilities. This emotional self-control is key to ensuring that you can maintain your positive outlook with sincerity. It also helps to cultivate adaptability. Those with good self-management are agents of change because they are not fearful of risks or losing control. As a result, you’ll see leaders with strong self-regulation also be great problem solvers and embrace innovative solutions. 

Ways to be a balanced leader: Creating healthy boundaries that won’t burn unnecessary energy. Invest in a set of leisurely activities that will help you fill your cup and can be part of your arsenal of internal resources to tap into when chaos erupts. 

3. Social Skills 

In the context of emotional intelligence, social skills refer to “the skills needed to handle and influence other people’s emotions effectively.” For leaders, an infallible way to secure trust between staff and yourself is to actively listen and stay engaged. In a time rife with uncertainty, leaders need to be proactive about stressors on the floor that could be impacting the mental wellness of staff. Leaders must make their staff feel seen and supported and listen with intent. The more you condition yourself to see signs of distress, the more that you can handle the problem effectively and timely. Also don’t be afraid to ask questions. 

Ways to be a socially-skilled leader: Choose your words wisely. Words have power and can either build, or erode trust. Also, be aware of nonverbal cues from team members that something might be wrong. You can easily monitor withdrawn individuals through the Wambi platform. 

4. Empathy 

Empathy is the ability to understand how others are feeling and reading the environment around you. But empathy also involves the way you respond to others based on their feelings. Being empathetic is having the awareness for other people’s emotions, and taking the extra effort to helping them when their emotions are negative. When you help raise a demoralized staff member’s spirits by taking the time to hear their concerns, or go out of your way to attend to support a grieving family, those moments of empathy can help you leverage social relationships to incite lasting cultural change at your organization.  

Ways to be a more empathetic leader: Talk to new people.  Listen with intent. Quoting our Director of Partnerships, Nikki Lewallen: “if we want to do incredible work and get incredible results, we must have incredible relationships.” To learn more about the secrets of being an incredible business, click here. 

5. Motivation 

Another emotional intelligence component is internal motivation. Those who have a passion for what they do and are internally rewarded so long as they are aligned to their own goals, can in turn, motivate others to do the same. Motivation goes hand-in-hand with gratitude as those who are motivated are grateful about all their wins. This kind of mentality builds inspirational leaders and is great in boosting team morale and helping teams work together. Those with motivation are always finding ways to do, and be better. 

Ways to be a motivational leader: Encourage others to utilize meaningful recognition tools instead of chasing material incentives. Also, be generous with your recognition. Team members find value in being highlighted by corporate leadership, as displayed by Wambi user, Vito Buccellato, President and Chief Hospital Executive at Jersey Shore University Medical Center, who sent 533 recognitions through the Wambi platform. Vito shared, “If we want to create that experience for our patients, we need to do the same for our team members.  It’s a win-win to share recognition — the person you recognize feels great and so do you!”   

Leaders on a mission to improve their emotional intelligence can do so by surrounding themselves with people who demonstrated high levels of emotional intelligence. Because workplace success is contingent on understanding and connecting meaningfully with others in a way that creates operational synergy, it is highly likely that the more elevated the EQ is among your team, the more organizational wins you’ll have as a collective. According to the HR Source, EQ accounts for 58% of an individual’s performance while IQ only accounts for 20% of their overall efficacy.  Identify these attributes in your team members: 

• They take the time for self-reflection. 
• They know how to self-soothe in chaotic situations. 
• They remain calm under pressure. 
• They resolve conflict effectively. 
• They lead by example. 
• They are persistent even in times of duress. 
• They are empathetic towards their colleagues and their patients. 

Ways to be a better leader: If you see any of these behaviors being displayed at your healthcare organization, spotlight a team member now by sending them a gratitude-filled Wambi through Carepostcard.com. 

When we use emotional intelligence to guide our thinking and actions, we can take control of the situation instead of letting the emotions overtake our sensibilities. If this article inspired you to be a more emotionally intelligent leader, we invite you take our Leadership Self-Reflection assessment designed to help you reflect on your recognition style. 

The Humans at Work in Healthcare panel discussion unveiled top priorities and better practices for human resource leaders to create a thriving workplace.

How do you control for burnout amongst leadership? How are you preparing future leaders to create cultures of gratitude? These are just some of the questions we explored during our hourlong panel on leading with humanity. Top human resource experts reflected on connection, engagement, and importance of recognizing various sources of stress. Here are the top takeaways from the conversation:

• Leaders have a corporate responsibility to identifying sources of mental exhaustion on staff. They must get to know their teams and what is happening outside of work that is impacting their performance and leading to burnout.
• Before talking to our teams about resilience, let’s talk about recovery. Leaders need to prioritize conversations surrounding team recovery and respond to the mounting needs with intention and structural change.
• How are we training managers to have difficult conversations with their teams? We need to make sure that all individuals in leadership roles are equipped to navigate these conversations with sensitivity and empathy.
• Leading with vulnerability and heart gives permission for others to do the same. Small moments of connection can get us through a lot, so leaders need to not only make space for emotion, but to model being vulnerable.

Ophelia Byers, Vice President & Chief Nursing Officer at NY-Presbyterian Hospital  (New York)

Ophelia M. Byers DNP, APRN, WHNP-BC, NEA-BC, CPXP, she/her(s), is a hospital executive in New York, speaker, author, and self-described culture cultivator and way-maker. Dr. Byers has been in the nursing profession for over 21 years, inclusive of a clinical background in Women and Children’s Health and progressive leadership roles over the last 12 years. Diversity/Equity/Inclusion/Belonging, team engagement, and leader development are key priorities in her leadership practice.

Sebastien Girard, Chief People Officer at Centura Health (Colorado and Western Kansas)

Sebastien Girard joined Centura Health as Senior Vice President & Chief People Officer in July 202 and is responsible for the strategic and operational advancement of the Human Resources division. Sebastien’s career spans more than 20 years in overseeing operations, sales, human resources and talent acquisitions teams, profit and loss statement management, and adapting the people strategy to market needs in the human resources service provider and healthcare industries. Sebastien previously served as Senior Vice President Workforce Operations at Atrium Health in Charlotte, NC and as Workforce Officer for Parkland Hospital in Dallas, TX. Sebastien holds a Master of Business Administration from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). 

Paula Pritzl, Chief Human Resources Officer at Marshfield Clinic Health System  (Wisconsisn)

Paula Prtizl has 33 years under her belth with Marshfield Clinic, a health system with over 12,500 employees, physicians, and APC’s providing care in rural communities within WI. With four years in Administration working with the CFO and 29 years within HR, her current role as CHRO is driven by her personal philosophy, that “People are her passion, kindness is her motto, growth opportunities are a must, and engagement is the goal.” She believe if we are passionate about our employees, treat them with kindness and respect, provide challenges and growth opportunities, engagement will be natural. 

Zane Zumbahlen, Chief Human Resources and Talent Officer at the Cancer Treatment Centers of America (Nationwide)

A human resources leader with global expertise in large-scale innovation to drive strategic transformation and growth, he is focused on driving business value, optimizing performance, reinvigorating continuous learning, driving the ongoing evolution of talent attraction and fostering engagement, diversity and inclusion. Zumbahlen joined CTCA® in July 2020 following a 25-year career at IBM where he held various leadership roles in the United States, Sweden and Japan. Most recently, he served as Vice President of Human Resources supporting the synergy efforts for IBM’s acquisition of Red Hat in Armonk, New York, which helped strengthen the company’s position in the hybrid multi-cloud sector. Zumbahlen earned a Master’s degree in Human Resources and Labor Relations from Michigan State University and a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology from the University of Illinois. 

An emotionally intelligent leader must be self-aware. Take a minute to reflect on your strategy and style in order to take the first step in driving retention and reducing burnout by completing our Leadership Self-Reflection Survey.