Authored by Stéphane Côté from the Rotman School, Thomas Sy from California State University, and Richard Saavedra from the University of New Hampshire, the study showed causal links between the mood in which a leader is and the performance of his or her team. Below are some key points.

Findings

Leaders’ moods are transferred to group members. This is probably no surprise to most, but the study produced evidence that individuals with a leader in a good mood were in a good mood mode than in a bad mood and those with a leader in a bad mood experienced the opposite. This “transfer of mood” was also observed at the group level, where the leader’s mood affected the moods of the group as a whole.

Leaders’ moods impact group processes. The two processes that were studies were “effort” and “coordination.” In terms of effort, the authors found that groups with leaders in a bad mood tend to exert more effort on the task at hand than groups with leaders in a good mood.

This is believed to be because when the leader is in a good mood, the group takes that cue to mean that the work is satisfactory and thus they can relax. When the leader’s mood is bad, however, the group interprets that to mean that they’re not measuring up and so they redouble their efforts.

In terms of cooperation, the findings are more consistent with common belief. Groups with leaders in a positive mood exhibited more cooperation than those with leaders in a foul mood.

The authors presume this to be related to the effort findings above. Groups with a leader in a good mood, while relaxing their efforts, also feel more secure and thus behave in a more agreeable and cooperative fashion. Those with leaders in a bad mood, on the other hand, exhibit the opposite behavior.

Implications

1. Leaders must understand the role of moods to be successful. To be effective, leaders need to understand how their moods impact their teams so that they can manage those moods accordingly.

2. Leaders must efficiently regulate their teams’ moods. This means not just focusing on the mood of individuals but rather on the overall group mood (the so called “group affective tone”) to be effective.
3. Leaders can influence their groups by regulating their mood displays. The display of the leader’s mood to subordinates can be managed to attain the desired outcome from the team.

It used to be that emotions in the workplace were seen as unprofessional or otherwise negative. More and more, emotions are being seen as a non-trivial part of organizational performance.