What Your Organization Needs Now is Joy

by Cordelia Gaffar, Regina Kleinhenz, Bonny Renner

What Your Organization Needs Now is Joy

In today’s challenging economic climate and polarized political landscape, employees are coming to work with heavy minds. This can take a toll on your organization’s productivity and bottom line, especially if interpersonal relationships are strained between departments.?

Leadership sets the tone in the workplace, so if you aren’t projecting a state of joy, your staff won’t be either.

What joy REALLY is and why it matters in business

Unlike happiness, which is fleeting, “joy is a deeper emotion than happiness that comes from within — from a sense of purpose and meaning, including finding meaning in suffering — and from relationships with others…cultivate joy in their lives, [by]? figuring out what they’re good at. Once they do, they can align the way they live their lives with their strengths, giving them a sense of purpose and meaning, which is key to joy.“ (1)

How does that relate to business? When you have joy you engage in meaningful activities, like sharing your expertise at work and using your skills for the greater good of the mission of your organization. You volunteer in your community. You slow down and become present with the actual issues. The slowing down can look like stopping during the day as a team to do a centering activity to bond with somatic movement.

When joy is woven into your workplace culture, it sparks innovation and collaboration, and transforms challenges into opportunities. Embracing joy not only uplifts individuals but the collective energy of teams, creating a dynamic environment where creativity and possibility thrive.

Leaders who embody joy also become magnetic role models.? Take the dramatic shift in the US presidential race as an example. Instead of relying on fear-based messaging, Vice President Kamala Harris is campaigning with joyful confidence, humor, and grace—qualities that inspire hope and appeal to our better selves. That approach is clearly working for her, as evidenced by the astounding $81 million in donations she received within the first 24 hours of her campaign.

Leading from a place of joy means leading from the heart—not the head—which is logic-based and subject to the whims and hidden agendas of our ego. Joy promotes clear, balanced, and forward-thinking decision-making. It also supports resilience, and helps to maintain a curious, growth-oriented mindset when the inevitable breakdowns happen.

The good news is that we don’t need to wait for something extraordinary to experience more joy. By practicing intentional joy daily, we can cultivate joy as a way of being.

What are you doing to keep your spirits lifted as a leader? We get it: As a leader your plate is already full, so we won’t waste your time with overused concepts like “stress management,” “work-life balance,” or “mindfulness.” These ideas often fall flat because they only add to your already overwhelming to-do list.

Instead, consider this: What if you didn’t need to “do” anything to lift your spirits? What if joy, inner peace and freedom are already within you, just waiting to emerge? Take a moment to reflect on this.

If it is true that joy is already within you, the next question is: What’s blocking you from leading with joy and purpose? From our collective nearly of 60 years experience, the ten most common barriers are:?

1. Believing that your feelings are coming from something “out there” (outside-in misunderstanding);?
2. Feeling alone (due to lone-wolfing or avoiding asking for help)
3. Fearing failure
4. Imposter Syndrome (believing you’re not good enough and also doubting your wisdom and that of your team)
5. Focusing on problems rather than celebrating wins.
6. Not showing up authentically (wearing the “leader costume”)
7. Taking things personally
8. Not being fully present with yourself and your team (too busy with your thinking)?
9. Neglecting your boundaries, energy, and self compassion
10. ?[insert whatever else keeps your leader spirit down at the moment]

If you simply stopped doing (at least 2-3) of these things, your spirit would naturally rise. Just like a ball held underwater, letting go will allow it to float to the surface. Joy is already within you; you don’t need to “do” anything.

So, what will you do with all that energy you’ve been using to keep the ball underwater? Whatever it is, your staff will appreciate a more joyful and authentic leader. (By the way, we’d love to hear your thoughts, so consider joining us next week to share. Link to Zoom Call below.)

The Trickle Down Effect

Joy is one of the most powerful creative forces in the universe, and like every other emotion, it is contagious. When you embody joy, it transforms you. Your mental health stabilizes, and you begin to show up fully as an authentic, congruent human being. Our society often encourages us to compartmentalize our humanity, leaving some parts behind. This diminishes our joie de vivre and prevents us from using our unique skills to their fullest potential.

This article is inviting you to cultivate your own self-awareness and reconnect with your purpose whenever you feel disengaged, so you can use it to reignite team productivity and outcomes. This trickle-down effect empowers individual self-awareness and supports a shared outcome. When we use this human-centric approach, unconscious bias fades away, and team building becomes natural and effortless, like breathing, rather than herding cats. The real magic happens when the synergy of joy infuses and energizes your entire team. I call that joy-bonding (2). Joy-bonding occurs when each team member contributes their expertise with joy.?

This is a somatic correction. Remember when you went to university and said, “I love mechanical engineering and want to make and break things all day with my friends”? When I join an organization, I teach a movement style that engages both the body and mind in partnership. I’m talking about movement or exercise aimed at stabilizing emotions, understanding bodily sensations, and enhancing connections with others.

According to The Somatic Movement Center, somatic movement is “a movement that’s practiced consciously with the intention of focusing on the internal experience of the movement rather than the external appearance or the end result of the movement.” (3) For example, you might want to implement somatic movement at the start of a team meeting. While this is not "exercise" in the traditional sense, envision your team meeting in a park like people practicing Tai Chi in unison to destress. In this case, you are also mentally connecting and building trust. This trust-building can lead to benefits such as losing physical weight and reducing inflammation. The result is a healthier team with less absenteeism and attrition.

What Does This Mean for Your Organization?

What your organization needs now is joy! Consider trying joy as a strategy. Where do you begin with this? Quite simply do things differently. Below we are inviting you to take action now. Share this article with key team members and other leaders. See if it resonates and ten try these recommendations below.

Three things you can do differently:

1. Hire a Joy-Bonding Consultant?
2. Offer team connection time
3. Join us next Thursday for What Your Organization Needs Now is Joy at 1 pm ET/ 7 pm CET

During this hour long interactive discussion you get to be it with the authors of this article and take action now.?

• Laser On the Spot Coaching
• Be a more authentic leader and embody joy.
• Learn some somatic movement
• Gain a fresh perspective
• Integrating joy-bonding activity into meetings
• Raising Employee Morale
• Lower Cost Than Permanent hiring
• Integrating more gratitude into your day
• Discover your joy as a leader, or as a woman in a male dominated industry or a member of a battling team.?
• Bring your real life situations and allow these three joy bonding experts transform your life now.?

Register here

This article was written in collaboration with two of my colleagues although it may convey as one voice. And for fun come to our discussion next week to figure which one of us wrote which paragraphs. Read Bonny and Regina’s bios below to cross reference. The overall benefit of being part of our discussion is to create joy as the norm in your workplace, on your team and as a way of being.?

#IntimacyIntelligence #EmotionalIntelligence #JoyBonding

Sources

1. https://www.embarkbh.com/blog/mental-health/joy-vs-happiness/
2. https://www.brainzmagazine.com/post/3-tips-to-create-joy-bonding
3. https://somaticmovementcenter.com/somatic-movement-what-is-somatic-movement/

Cordelia Gaffar? is a globally sought-after Joy-bonding Consultant and movement facilitator, a four-time best-selling author of eight books and two time award-winning host of her podcast, The Free to Be Show, certified in Sports Nutrition, Authentic Consent, and a form of somatic dance called Mvt 109. She transforms teams to joy-bonding vs team building through choosing the human centric pleasure, joy and compassion to improve employee connection, retention and profitability with her signature modality called Jynger Bytes ? .

Regina Kleinhenz - Spiritual Leadership

For the last 5 years Regina has worked both with small businesses and big players such as Allianz, CMS and BOSCH.?

With her “Leadership Wisdom Accelerator” she’s helping leaders & teams understand how their minds work so they can …

– reduce stress levels & increase productivity

– trust their intuition & improve decision-making

– build stronger relationships through better communication

– find innovative solutions to problems & make progress on goals and visions

– experience more happiness & loyalty towards the company.

And all of this beyond the usual leadership or team building training (which you have probably already been given a try in vain) to make your organisation future-proof, innovative and more profitable.?

Regina is renowned for her sharpness when it comes to the root cause of the problem, her gift to create deep & meaningful connections & her great sense of humour.?

Bonny Georgia Renner - Conscious Leadership Empowerment

Did you know that shame, isolation, and lack are the top three hidden power blocks for women? Virtually every woman, no matter how successful, feels like she’s “not enough” in some way.?

Research shows that these socialized and gender-specific thought patterns are at the heart of why talented women often feel stuck and play small. Traditional coaching isn’t designed to shift these perceptions.

Using a research-backed, women-centered ROAR framework, Bonny helps high-achieving women recognize and break through these inner glass ceilings. By embracing their feminine power and cultivating personal agency, women can lead with more authenticity and heart, transforming their lives and the teams and communities they serve.