Laugh, and the world laughs with you; weep, and you weep alone.
In the business world, your value is often evaluated at the mercy of fellow workers and employers. More often than not, everyone values a good mood-maker that knows how to lighten the atmosphere and please the crowd, compared to someone who is bland and moody regardless of the situation.
Having a consistent, positive image that draws the company and attention of others can prove to have advantages in your workplace. This can come in the form of effortless team management, or overcoming the hurdles that you have when it comes to closing deals. Sometimes, it can also serve as a handy ice-breaker tool when tensions are rising at work. If you are still convinced that having a stern demeanour will get a better job well done, here are the detailed explanations of the advantages of having a positive image at work.
Better Management of Team Projects
First up, having a positive image at work makes it easier for you to be approachable in the eyes of others, elevating your chances in building necessary rapport among your colleagues at work when its called for.
According to The Definitive Book of Body Language by Allan and Barbara Pease, studies have shown that people have the tendency to distance themselves aways from people who donned a negative expression on their faces. The negative expression in question is termed as ‘The Permanent Down-Mouth’, where the edges of the mouth goes downward, implying that the person is feeling moody, angry or tense in general.
Doing the opposite means that your outward appearance comes across as friendly to others; in other words, a smile. In the work context, this acts as a benefit especially when you are tasked to lead a team to complete a work project; your members will be more open to communicating with you. It definitely helps to prevent the negative situation where your team members start to go around your back to get solutions, and cause problems to arise due to the amount of miscommunication that might ensue due to this action. You might get blamed for being an incapable leader, simply because you come across as a distant one. So when in doubt, always make sure that your smiles are up when you are dealing with your team, and clarify with them when they feel that your expression gives off the wrong impression.
Increases Your Sales Number at Work
By having a positive image also helps when you are expected to close deals or guarantee a successful sale. It has been proven that showing humour during work actually allows you to increase the credibility that you have as a person and lets you come across as more trustworthy to the client in consideration. Studies have also shown that consumers tend to find humorous advertisements more credible and trustworthy compared to the ones that are not in comparison.
However, there are things to note when it comes to implementing humour into your image, as you need to be cautious about what jokes are acceptable at your current position in your workplace. It is always safe to engage in self-deprecating humour, provided that it does not end up undermining your product or company. For example, suppose that you are selling an anti hair fall product on behalf of your company, your customer will not be impressed if you said something along the lines of it not working on you. Always avoid risky topics concerning gender, race or politics etcetera. You basically have to figure out how to keep your jokes in the politically correct arena, lest you offend someone by accident. If you are not sure as to how to do this, it helps to do some studying as well — read up on books that talk about comedy, take notes as you stream a well-known piece from a stand-up comedian, and figure out what’s appropriate and what’s not for your workplace.
Decreases Stress Levels at Workplace
Having a positive image can also help you cope with stress at the workplace. In general, when your positive image is accompanied with humour, you can actually make the workplace a more manageable and healthy one by keeping the stress levels low through laughter.
This is because when laughter is induced, endorphins are released, which has healing effects and helps with stress relief. This is definitely useful, especially when you can sense that there’s tension building up within the workplace or a team. It helps to ease or break tension when you take lead in breaking the ice, by cracking an appropriate joke here and there between different levels of management. The only setback however, is that there’s possibility where your colleagues might not take you seriously when you are trying to troubleshoot an issue with them.
So there is a need for you to learn how to strike a delicate balance between meaning business and joking around. In general, by keeping up with a positive image, not only productivity and morale levels will remain at a ideal level for your team; you are also able to keep your health in check when you are not constantly taking yourself too seriously as well.
In short, having a positive image at work allows you to maintain and upkeep a great reputation as a worker in the workplace. When enforced on a daily basis, it helps to facilitate your teamwork as a whole in projects, close more deals effectively in sales and keep your health and team dynamic in check by using the medical benefits of laughter. It is never too late to take action and rectify your image at work now if you think it is negative. You can take up tiny steps by firstly, practicing your smile in your mirror and make sure it comes of as a genuine one, followed by figuring out what humour works for you best when you take your position and workplace into consideration. As the saying goes, practice makes perfect; you will soon find yourself being a better version of yourself once you enforce these habits on a daily basis!
