Here is a brief excerpt from an article Tony Schwartz wrote for the Harvard Business Review blog. To check out out all the free resources at his website, please click here.

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I decided to let go of a very negative executive, both because he’d lost the trust of our team, and because I didn’t believe he was capable of changing. The day I made the move, it was as if a cloud had lifted and the sun came back out

So what lessons have I taken away from this experience?

1. The emotions people bring to work are as important as their cognitive skills, and especially so for leaders.

2. Because it’s not possible to check our emotions at the door when we get to work—even when that’s expected—it pays to be aware of what we’re feeling in any given moment. You can’t change what you don’t notice.

3. Negative emotions spread fast and they’re highly toxic. The problem with the executive we let go was not that he was critical, but rather that he was so singularly focused on what was wrong that he lost sight of the bigger picture, including his own negative impact on others.

4. Authenticity matters because you can’t fake positivity for long. It is possible to put on a “game face”—to say you’re feeling one way when you’re actually feeling another—but the truth will ultimately reveal itself in your facial, vocal, and postural cues. We must learn to monitor and manage our moods.

5. The key to balancing realism and optimism is to embrace the paradox of realistic optimism. Practically, that means having the faith to tell the most hopeful and empowering story possible in any given situation, but also the willingness to confront difficult facts as they arise and deal with them directly.

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To read the complete article, please click here.

Tony Schwartz is the President and CEO of The Energy Project, which helps individuals and organizations perform at their best. Tony’s book, The Power of Full Engagement, co-authored with Jim Loehr, was a Wall Street Journal and New York Times bestseller and has been translated into 28 languages. His article “Manage Energy, Not Time: The Science of Stamina,” co-authored with Catherine McCarthy, was published in the October, 2007 Harvard Business Review. Tony co-authored the #1 worldwide bestseller The Art of the Deal with Donald Trump and also wrote What Really Matters: Searching for Wisdom in America and most recently, Be Excellent at Anything: The Four Keys To Transforming the Way We Work and Live.