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Over the years I have come to understand that arguably the most critical aspect of managing people in the workplace involves managing their feelings and emotions.

Emotion plays a critical role in what people achieve or don’t achieve. It’s common knowledge that the person who does things with passion is more likely to succeed than the person who lacks passion.

While emotion-based actions and reactions are often frowned upon in the business world by old school executives and managers as “unstable and unreliable”, new generation thinking embraces emotion as a necessary part of success and encourages people to release emotion in the course of their working activities.

But we need to be sure that we’re focusing on and releasing the right emotions, as the wrong ones will be destructive. Believe it or not, positive emotions such as hope, enthusiasm, passion, faith, love, loyalty and confidence are more and more being recognised as key factors in individual and team success, and being encouraged in the workplace.

Companies who succeed in creating a culture of authentic love, loyalty and energy get massive returns in comparison to their unloving competitors who have a negative culture.

Negative emotions such as hopelessness, anger, bitterness, resentment, jealousy, envy, greed and worry sap employees’ creative energy, distract their focus  and will not contribute to growth, sustainability and success.

Oh, sure, there are companies and people who have become financially successful through greed, but that’s pretty much where their success ends. Employee relationships are in tatters, they’re eaten up by stress and their health eventually starts giving problems. Unfortunately, people trapped in that type of environment start to believe that that’s what life is like  in the twenty-first century. But it’s not!

Success is more and more being defined in terms of good mental, emotional and physical health and well being, as well as financial success.

While it’s important to nurture positive emotions in the workplace, we need to start with ourselves by looking at eliminating our own useless and unnecessary thoughts. 

So, why not learn to “manage your mind”, as Donald Trump puts it? Recognise that negative thinking – about yourself, about your situation and about your prospects – will consume your energy and destroy your ability to focus, resulting in a drop in performance which will affect your prospects as well as those of your company.

Listen out for the “monkey chatter” that goes on in your mind all the time. You’ll be surprised at how many negative thoughts you tolerate in your mind. When you realise that they’re not going to help you succeed, you may wish to start eliminating the negative chatter. All it will do is feed your self pity, despondency and defeat. You will then start looking at other more successful people and become envious of their success, causing your own life to spiral downwards, further reducing your chances of success.

So be ruthless with your mind. Every time you recognise a negative thought, don’t offer it any accommodation. Replace it with a positive thought by focusing on the good things you want to achieve. Whenever you’re tempted to wallow in negative thinking, remind yourself that no negative person has ever become successful.

You won’t be the exception, so don’t waste your time and energy on something that won’t get you anywhere!