Energy + Motivation (HBR Emotional Intelligence Series)

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The More You Energize Your Coworkers, the Better Everyone Performs

By Wayne Baker

How much energy do you have at work? Do you feel invigorated and engaged or down and disengaged? Either way, the reason might be your coworkers: They are infecting you with their energy, positive or negative.

We “catch” energy through our interactions with people—something called “relational energy”—and it affects our performance at work. This is what my colleagues Bradley Owens, Dana Sumpter, Kim Cameron, and I learned.¹ We were motivated to do this research because energy is a vital personal and organizational resource, but research on the sources of energy have neglected a source that everyone experiences in everyday life—our relationships with others. In a ...