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Your workplace environment significantly impacts your level of success. Understanding the key factors that influence this can help you navigate challenges.
In this article you’ll get seven critical elements that affects your context and thereby influence your level of success. Off cause this is not a one way street. You might be influenced by your context, but you can also influence your context. If you prefer reading in Danish then access the Danish version here.
Reveal the circumstances that influence your energy level
No man is an island, so you are part of some contexts, ands this mean that your level of success is influenced by your context, but also that you can influence your context. Every workplace has its own rules, norms, processes, people, and ways of doing things. It has a huge effect on you.
In my book, Power Barometer, Manage energy, not just time and Money. I go through each and every this in depth, so that you can mirror your own situation to what science and my experience as an executive coach says about the topic, and find the right answers for you, at this very moment. To succeed, you must start looking at the trees in your forest.
Seeing the trees in your forest
We’ve all heard the saying “I can’t see the forest for the trees.” It can be very difficult to see your own context clearly when you’re embedded in it, and there is a neurological reason for that. Your brain is wired to save energy by ignoring factors that seem normal and that you are used to. If we think of how much energy the brain consumes, it’s smart that we do not have to spend a lot of energy thinking about everyday things, such as opening the door to our home. The first time you have to open the door, you use your brain’s energy-consuming frontal lobes. They help you think logically and consider how other locks that you have opened before have worked.
If the door does not open or close as you expect, your brain increases your focus and energy use. Once you understand exactly how your lock works and it becomes a habit to lock and unlock it, your brain rewires the synapses you use to open and lock the door. The brain’s motor cortex is now a key center, and you can practically become unaware of your actions while opening or locking the door. That’s why so many people forget where they left their keys after opening the door. They were unaware in the moment. Something similar happens at work.
The same rewiring of the brain happens to us when we interact with people and situations that we are used to. We become unaware. The brain treats the situation as if it is the same situation as last time—like it’s normal not to see the forest for the trees.
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Seven factors that affect your context at work
To get an accurate picture of your own context, you must strike the right balance between focusing on your own behavior and focusing on the factors in your context. You affect your context, and your context affects you. There are at least seven factors that affect your context and influence whether people, teams, and organizations have a high or low energy level and the ability to be ready:
- Change. The context has a strong effect on whether employees feel a change is for the better or for the worse. The change can result from a technical and/or adaptive challenge.
- Exploration. Your context affects your ability to learn together when you face adaptive challenges that require exploration and new solutions.
- Cutbacks. Resource constraints can make employees feel a sense of failure if the reductions cause them to lose necessary resources or they think they are in danger of losing their jobs.
- Atmosphere. At best, the atmosphere can promote calm and productivity, and at worst, it can lead to high stress and employee turnover.
- Leadership. People navigate based on leaders’ behaviors. Their ability to be agile is affected by the leader’s actions. In the modern workplace, leadership is to some extent carried out in all directions: upward, downward, laterally, and reciprocally.
- Culture. This has a greater influence than strategy. Collective norms and values often affect employee behavior more than a communicated strategy.
- Trust. You can build trust when you are aware of what kind of behavior creates it. You can read more about how to ensure great collaboration here.
No matter what your position is, you have a role, a responsibility, and some degree of influence on your context. You can be a good role model. You can assume responsibility for tasks. You can take on your share of responsibility for your relationships and work with others to influence decisions and actions. If you do the opposite, that also influences your context, just like your context influences you. You can read more about the role that context plays in my book, Power Barometer.
If you want to leap your leadership development after the summer. Maybe you should consider coaching. Reach out at, hello@josefinecampbell.com, +45 26361199 or take a closer look at the coaching page.
And remember that we help people in multinational companies to handle challenges in a meaningful way and take business to the next level. If you would like to be updated with new articles and videos, sign up for our mailing list. Your mail is not shared with anyone and there are advantages to being on the list e.g., getting the first chapter of my book, Power Barometer – How to Manage Personal Energy for Business Success.
