You make a difference.

Your behavior affects others more than you may think.

Although you may not have heard of the term “social contagion” you are probably aware of the phenomena. Writing for the Harvard Business Review Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman discuss whether “social contagion” affects leaders and how your behavior can have a profound affect, for good or bad, on those around you.

We know that emotions are contagious. Research by UC San Diego’s James Fowler and Harvard’s Nicholas Christakis has shown that happiness is contagious, for example. If you have a friend who is happy, the probability that you will be happier rises by 25%.

We also know that behaviors are contagious. Christakis and Fowler determined that if you have overweight friends, you’re more likely to be overweight yourself. If you quit smoking, your friends are more likely to quit. Rose McDermott of Brown University found that divorce is contagious. She concluded that if you have a close friend who’s divorced, you are 33% more likely to split with your spouse.

With this in mind the pair conducted a study of 265 pairs of high-level managers (HL) and their mid-level manager direct reports (ML). The results were dramatic; “we found highly significant correlations on a variety of behaviors.”

Within the behaviors that appeared contagious, there were some that appeared even more contagious than others. Behaviors that had the highest correlations between managers and their direct reports clustered around the following themes, listed in order of most contagious to least contagious:

Developing self and others

Technical skills

Strategy skills

Consideration and cooperation

Integrity and honesty

Global perspective

Decisiveness

Results focus 

The upshot is: “the things you do poorly have a reasonable probability of being mimicked by others. Your peers, your direct reports, your partner or spouse, and your children also have a high probability of practicing the example you set.” Leadership skills may not be something you are born with, but they are within your control.

Take action to be a better leader now and join us at our training on goal setting and effective evaluation systems, Feb 4 and 18 2016.

Read the rest of the article here to find out more on the impact you make.