The damaging impact of ‘fake positivity’

3 months ago 21

Sure, we know that emotions are highly contagious, and being positive and optimistic also helps others around us to feel the same. But let’s be honest for a moment – sometimes life isn’t all rainbows and lollipops.

Some days aren’t great, and sometimes positivity isn’t the appropriate emotion. To put on a fake positive exterior is not helping us or the people around us. A 10-year study into avoidance-coping was linked to an increase in chronic, acute life stressors and long-term depressive symptoms. This isn’t healthy for anyone to avoid realistic emotions and paint everything with the “positivity brush”.

In my experience as an emotional intelligence and human behaviour specialist, our workplaces are becoming more focused on “employee wellbeing”, but it’s an easy facade to create fake positivity to tick the box on wellness and wave the flag that everything is awesome regardless of the reality of the situation. “Everything is great” (even though 200 people have just been made redundant).

Toxic positivity is a frequently pushed element of workplace cultures with a Science of People survey showing that almost 68 per cent of people had experienced toxic positivity in the last week.

For me, it is a weekly occurrence that I speak to people within organisations exposed to this same toxic-positivity environment, especially when it comes to implementing change. Employers encouraging a constant “this is going to be amazing” positive response and approach to every situation while we know that change is never perfect, and just below the surface, the culture is disintegrating with a lack of authenticity as people lose the ability to trust and be genuinely happy.

The fundamental basics of relationships between people is based on the ability to trust. Trust is created through being honest and transparent, being accountable and creditable, being empathetic and vulnerable. It takes being “real”, and fake positivity isn’t “real”. It questions every area of trust, therefore, creating distrust, dislike and frustration. If I can see that the positivity is fake, how can I trust the other things you say or do? Do I feel safe to be me, to be “real” or do I too need to be fake positive?

When this occurs, it impacts every part of our workplace from our culture to our performance, to our engagement, effort and mental health. Ultimately, it impacts the overall success of each person and in turn, the organisation.

Here are five steps to decrease the toxic positivity in a workplace and instead grow an emotionally intelligent culture.

Own the reality of the situation

The world is not perfect; we are not perfect. Things will go wrong, and we will get it wrong at times. We won’t always agree with everyone or everything that is happening around us but the only thing we have control over in this world is how we choose to respond. This response should be authentic and genuine. It should be appropriate to the situation and be at the right intensity without the need for forced toxic positivity.

The only thing we have control over in this world is how we choose to respond.

Face the emotions

There is no such thing as a “good” or “bad” emotion, and while we tend to think positivity is a “good” emotion, that isn’t the case. We should be focusing on whether the emotion is appropriate for the situation and whether the intensity or severity level at which we are feeling the emotion is appropriate. We feel emotions for a reason. Acknowledge and understand what is driving the emotion so that it can be processed before we move on. There is no need to fake or force any emotion as the emotional mind will feel how it feels, regardless of whether we are portraying fake positivity.

Understand how the people around us are feeling

Our emotions are highly contagious to the people around us, but people can spot a fake emotion a mile away. So, faking an emotion is setting a standard in workplace environments of what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. When people interact, success is achieved when there is trust and respect. Trust and respect won’t be created when people are not being authentic or genuine.

Ask the right questions and answer questions asked

Communication is always key to the workplace environment, and the ability to communicate effectively directly influences our culture. When we are feeling any form of intensive emotion, we have something to say. Ask the right questions to better understand what is driving the other person’s emotions. Answer the questions they have and provide the information they require to be able to move forward.

Drive emotional intelligence

Realistically, we know that a great culture in a workplace is when all emotions are being displayed appropriately. Some situations it will be positivity and other times it might be sadness, anger, disappointment, fear, frustration. Let’s not judge or fake the emotion, assess the appropriateness and severity and do what it takes to ensure they are felt and processed before moving forward.

One of my favourite quotes is from Lieutenant General David Morrison: “The standard you walk past is the standard you accept”. Every person contributes to the culture of a workplace. A toxic-positivity culture will continue for as long as the people within the culture continue to be “fake positive” and it is seen as being acceptable. It is the start of a path that will impact every person, their performance and the overall success of the business.

Amy Jacobson is an EI and human behaviour specialist, delivering emotional intelligence programs, keynotes & workshops across Australia internationally.