Congress and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geitner want to give shareholders a vote on executive pay.  The thinking goes like this:

Executives are critical to a company’s success, and giving shareholders a say on corporate pay helps ensure that shareholders get the right kind of leader, and hold influence over her.

But Congress doesn’t have the whole story.  When analyzing a CEO, shareholders should care about both economic wealth, and emotional health.  Here are five reasons a happy CEO is good for business.

1. Happier CEO’s know how and when to give authentic praise. The best CEOs and managers are able to use techniques like Active and Constructive Responding to celebrate success. And the research shows that maintaining the right ratio of praise to criticism correlates with bottom-line business results.

..

2. CEO’s in touch with their emotions are better able to focus on growth. According to Dr. Martin Seligman: “Within … a corporation, or a nation, when you’re in trouble, that trouble is generally about negative emotions. When you’re in trouble, you want to be the master of sadness or anger. The negative emotions, that’s about performance management traditionally in business, whereas if your concern … is growth, then I think that’s when the positive emotions and engagement and meaning really matter.” The Mindfullness Journal from happier.com helps you better understand, and ultimately manager, your positive and negative emotions.

..

3. Creativity counts. In today’s pressing business world, CEOs who exhibit creativity are being lauded for their ability to help companies recover. In professional under intense psychological strain, the reserch shows that positive emotion increases creativity and problem-solving. happier.com’s Positivity Portfolio provides even the most dour CEO with a quick emotional pick-me-up.

..

4. Resilience is golden. With adversity mounting all around us, the ability to demonstrate resilience is what sets apart those who succeed from those who fail. Resilience is the ability to persevere in teh face of an adversity and to thrive when confronted with challenges. Learning to be more optimistic is the key component of resilience. Seligman says:”What pessimism does is promote helplessness and what optimism does is it gets people trying harder even in the face of adversity. When it’s overcome-able, optimism matters.” Take the Optimism Test on happier.com to measure yourself.

..

5. Job satisfaction is directly tied to working within your strengths. In a recent poll of professionals on LinkedIn, happier.com found that the leading indicator of job satisfaction is feeling like you are using your strengths in everyday work. Happy CEOs are more likely to build their teams, and their organizations, around the strengths of employees, meaning everyone gets to benefit.

..

Interested in learning more? You may want to check out:

Fredrickson, B.L. & Losada, M.F. (2005). Positive affect and the complex dynamics of human flourishing. American Psychologist, 60(7), 678-686.

Active and Constructive Responding, explained by happier.com

Scherer. K – Importance of happiness in the work-place

.

.

happier.com is a personal trainer for your happiness. With more than a dozen tools and tests to help you measure, track and improve your happiness, you can trust the happier.com experts to help you reach your goals. Exclusive videos and a popular blog mean there’s something new to learn every day. Download the free iPhone application or find what you’re looking for with the Positive Psychology Practitioner Directory. happier.com is on Facebook, LinkedIn, and twitter and has meetup groups in Washington, Philadelphia, and Portland, with more planned. Click here for a social media press release from our launch.