Moshe’s Blog

Your Environment Powerfully Shapes Your Success as a Leader: 5 Amare Ways to Create an Environment that Brings Out Your Best

You Just Can’t Outperform Your Environment

Gene’s desk is covered in papers, he’s constantly in meetings, and continually interrupted by Slack notifications. He is so frustrated by how little real progress he makes, no matter how hard he tries.

When your best efforts fall short, it may not be your fault. Instead, it might be because your environment is not prompting, enabling, and reinforcing your desired behaviors.

Negative environmental forces can stifle organizational innovation, allow ethical lapses, create burnout, and sabotage major initiatives–no matter how good your people are or how much money you throw at things.

As a leader, you can shine a light on these unseen forces and create an environment friendly to your best self and a thriving organization. When I coach executives, I encourage them to start by considering three sets of environmental factors that, on a personal level, significantly influence their success.

Physical aspects: What’s your desk look like? How many windows are open on your computer? Is your chair comfy? What mood do your clothes create? Can you get enough privacy and quiet when you need it?

Support network: Do your colleagues and team uplift you? Are you using an accountability partner or leadership coach? How does the media you consume impact you? Your organization’s culture?

Guiding principles: Are you elevated by your organization’s highest purpose and your own personal mission? Do you align your schedule with your priorities? Are you committed to a comprehensive framework like the Amare Way?

Just as the Thanksgiving holiday is designed to foster a spirit of gratitude, you can design a business environment that generates productivity, collaboration, innovation, and ethical conduct. Conversely, a neglected or toxic environment can lead to disengagement, unethical practices, and ultimately, organizational failure.

How does your current work environment–its space, culture, and norms–affect your leadership and your team’s performance?

What specific elements of your workplace culture are holding your team back?

In what ways can you reshape our work environment to better support ethical behavior, collaboration, and peak performance?

5 Amare Techniques to Create an Environment that Brings Out Your Best

1. Start with you. Take a hard look at your work environment in terms of physical aspects, your support network, and guiding principles. Choose one small thing each week to improve.

2. Notice the negative payoff. Pay attention to what a sub-optimal environment allows you as a leader to excuse. Now stop that.

3. Open dialogue. Facilitate open discussions with your team about how the environment affects their work and morale. Initially, commit to making small changes and monitoring the impact.

4. Redesign the workspace a tiny bit. Identify one simple change to the physical workspace that will promote collaboration and well-being.

5. Reassess your culture. Reevaluate your company’s values and norms to ensure they enable an environment that promotes peak performance long-term.

As organizational psychologists have known for years, your work environment has an extraordinary influence on your ultimate success. Excellent love-powered leadership is as much about understanding and shaping environmental factors as it is about setting vision and strategic direction.

Whether it’s a non-inclusive culture blocking diversity efforts or a short-term profit focus derailing sustainability goals, leaders find their best intentions are only as effective as the environment they’re in.

Recognizing and actively molding your organization’s environment is key for any leader aiming for true excellence and lasting success.

Commit to being an architect of work environments that not only reflect your values but also empower your teams to reach their greatest potential.

Keynotes & Workshops that Spark Transformational Changes

I do powerful keynotes and custom workshops rooted in the Amare Way of love-powered leadership that empower leadership teams and inspire deep transformation. For more info, contact me here.