Building a Supportive Environment: The Importance of Kindness

An attitude is more than just an expression of how you feel; it is the way you make others feel, it is how people will perceive you and what you represent. In a business environment, being friendly is pretty much the minimum standard for building a community. However, people are not robots. We have real things and emotions that impact our mood. To combat the repercussions that could come from overt negativity, we need to understand why it is important to be kind and what it leads to. 

In any team setting there will be situations of uncertainty, worry, or even bad attitudes among members. While it’s normal to experience these issues, they must be dealt with to mitigate the impact they have on the team and the overall mission. When you focus on the positive in what you do, you can handle interactions far more rationally. 

This level of control is the first step to emotional intelligence and being a professional in the workplace. This is important for career advancement and community building, especially after studies have shown that nearly 60% of workers in America have considered leaving their job because of a co-worker. Plus, let’s be honest, if you’ve made it this far into the article, you’ve probably dealt with someone at work who’s tested your patience. If you are interested in building an empowering community for your organization then building a friendly and supportive environment is the best way to do so.  

Here are some ways to actively implement this:

Value In The Negative

When a negative situation happens, it feels like everything is falling apart and you may begin to overthink. However, negative or hard situations are not there to break you down— they can equip you to handle further difficulties should you face the situation and not avoid it. 

For example, let’s say you have a co-worker who does not follow through on their tasks or maybe leaves out key details. This would annoy anyone passionate in their role as this person is directly hindering production quality. While one could become frustrated, bring it to HR, or just clean up the mess that person made, they could instead ensure they’re on the same page with this co-worker at all times. This may require staying on top of them frequently, or making goals for them but that is a small price to pay in contrast to a lack of quality work. 

Put Your Pride Aside

The core reason for ending up in conflict most of the time is because of ego. It’s easy to see what everyone else is doing wrong, but how often do we look at our role in situations of conflict? When you check your ego, you become far more positive in the eyes of your team and you will be easier to work with.

Sounds great, right? It is, but it is also difficult to do, especially when rank enters the picture. For the sake of the team, put your ego in check before focusing on the actions of others.

Embrace Autonomy

Teamwork is great and staying on the same page is important, but just like anything else, it needs to be balanced. To ensure the satisfaction of team members and the production of quality work, everyone needs time to work independently. This can be balanced by having planned meetings at appropriate times. Each meeting can have goals that you want to have reached by the time they happen to ensure the time apart is used efficiently. This is also going to be beneficial to the planning process. 

Again, a supportive environment cannot be built by over-controlling. Teams have to assess what areas to focus their support on. Balancing this by managing the team to produce their work will have everyone engaged. This will not only help the quality of work but it will allow members to improve as professionals.

Conclusion 

With today’s working conditions, people are either making the most out of their job or in search of a new one. As an organization, you want to attract talent and build a community around your brand. This starts at an individual level; your attitude and energy are transmissible, so don’t waste that power on negativity.

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