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Few of you would choose to do things you are not proud of – personally or in the business environment. However, recent years have seen a period of collective corporate madness, which seems to have started in the mid 1980s and appears to be ending now.

The January-February 2012 issue of the Harvard Business Review was dedicated to exploring the value of happiness and wellbeing to organisations. And the evidence supporting the economic benefits for organisations with happy employees is overwhelming. However, many people we meet work in not-very-happy organisations whose leaders are invariably not described as ‘happy’! Many leaders describe themselves as “OK” or “fine”, their criteria being the number and importance of the issues or problems they’re currently trying to sort out. But happy? Rarely. But if you have a choice of being happy and working in a happy environment, why shouldn’t you choose to do so rather than a stressful, bullying, snappy work environment?

In an economic squeeze, businesses naturally focus on driving revenue and reducing costs. But there’s plenty of evidence to demonstrate a strong link between high performance and a positive working environment.

As a leader, it’s your job to spot what’s going right. To do that, you must habitually make it your business to find out. So what should you do if something has gone right? Start by finding out precisely what the person did that resulted in a good outcome

In the work environment, it’s easy to do something because it’s expected of you, rather than because you believe it’s right. Perhaps you’ve backed away from taking a decision or saying something because it seemed easier? It’s all too easy to be caught up in ways of behaving that we feel at odds with – it can be lack of self-confidence, fear of not being seen as a ‘team player’, or the ethos of the organisation in which we work.

For the vast majority of people, collaboration is a matter of willingness, not ability. And unless there is a fundamental wish to collaborate, it won’t happen. When senior people in organisations tell their team leaders to work together, it will only happen if ‘they’ want it to.

We are largely defined, as individuals, by what we believe in strongly, both the things we are passionate about doing and the things we are passionate about preventing. Some of us are more passionate than others and there are two extremes: One says, “toe the line”, “don’t make waves”, “keep your head down”.

Here are some of the things, often unspoken, that your followers are concerned about when you speak, change direction or priorities, have a “brilliant” new idea, or push them beyond where they think they’re capable of reaching.

Do you make New Year’s resolutions? Normally they’re doomed to failure, because we are creatures of habit. We wish and hope for things to change, yet fail consistently to make changes in our thinking and behaviour which will improve our lives year on year. These questions (from ‘Your Best Year Yet’ by Jinny Ditzler) kick off a process of discovery, reflection and planning which enables you to design your best year yet.

How do you handle change? How comfortable are you with what’s on your plate? Are you going with the flow or resisting? The quality of your leadership depends on how you deal with the cards you draw and how you succeed using what you’ve got. In this article, we present seven perspectives on personal mastery and leadership effectiveness, drawing from ancient spiritual wisdom from around the world.