Who’s setting the tone at work today?

Anyone?

If someone isn’t setting the tone intentionally, then it is probably being set by the first three things that happen this morning.

Should the first three things that happen be an unexpected deadline change, an angry client, and an assistant gone AWOL, you’re in for a rough day!

What if, though, you set the tone for your day? What if you were to choose—before even arriving at work—what sort of attitude, perspective and demeanor with which you were going to approach your day?

Instead of waiting to react to whatever might be going on at the office, you would be taking the initiative to be one of the actors that everyone else reacts to.

You would be taking the initiative on your own behalf and also on the behalf of the entire office culture.

In this scenario, when the unexpected deadline change gets announced, the angry client yells at you, or the assistant goes AWOL right when you needed their help, you will deal with these unfortunate and difficult experiences from the healthy, positive, and constructive frame of reference you chose earlier.

It’s your choice either way you look at it.

You can choose to let circumstances set the tone for you, or you can choose the tone from which you will set into the day’s circumstances.

Which brings us back to the original question: Who’s setting the tone at work today if you aren’t?

On your side,

– Karl Edwards

Loving Monday is a weekly column designed to encourage us to step into our weeks with an intention to show up authentically, engage fully, and choose to make it a good week for ourselves. Explore past columns here.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 11th, 2011 at 9:23 am and is filed under Loving Monday. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.