It’s always good to have a healthy environment within the Team, and to maintain that, one should have more interaction and discussion with Peers, and having a genuine smile helps you to maintain that, it spreads happiness thereby creates...
Statutory Warning: This article is not influenced by any particular person at my Workplace. Any resemblance to actual persons or actual events is purely coincidental. There might be a chance you could relate this article to yourself or your colleague, and you end up smiling after reading the complete article.
So Let’s Begin…. It’s not that my Boss doesn’t smile while interacting with me at work, and that is not why I wrote this article. This is my observation while interacting with many colleagues from different organizations. When we are at the workplace, most of us wear different caps: Engineers /Analysts/Leads/Managers/Consultants (I will not go beyond that 
). And Trust Me, Every Job must be dealt with utmost seriousness and professionalism. But when it comes to Work Style and dealing with peers/colleagues / Seniors, it’s up to an individual to handle the work in her/his way; that means whether we want to be serious all the time while working or pretend to be Serious being at a certain level to show the Seniority at Work. Being an Observer, I have seen that some people don’t smile at each other, and mostly, they are colleagues at the same level. (And the reason we will discuss later at the end.) .On the other side, Peers who don’t like to smile at other Peers would be seen smiling at their Boss or Juniors … Not so uncommon .. right?
Let’s understand the concept of Smile at Workplace, which helps a person determine how much interaction she/he wants to keep open when a gesture of smile is given because once you smile, you are giving the other person an opportunity to connect or interact. If you are a manager and reading this article, I am sure you must be thinking, I cannot keep smiling all the time with 20 or 50 people working with me, and that makes sense, too. As a Manager, keeping a smile with so much going on around is quite challenging. Now, the next thing that comes to our mind is, is it reasonable to always Keep that smile on your face? According to me, the answer is NO!! The reason is there is a difference between a Genuine Smile and a Fake Smile. I am sure anybody can make out after multiple instances who is keeping a fake smile and who is genuine, even if you are Superior or Junior. If not !! Here is a little thought that will actually make you smile 
. Have you ever seen a baby’s smile when you return home, which fades away all your stress, and you tend to smile back at the baby, making you feel relaxed and stress-free? So that kind of genuine smile only comes not at all times but at specific instances. So if that kind of smile is coming your way, either from a Senior/Junior/Colleague or an actual smile that will actually make you feel happy, you tend to smile back as a gesture to respond to that smile. If your manager is not smiling back at you all the time, don’t start browsing (“10 different ways to make my Boss smile at me “) there is a reason for her/him not to smile all the time. I agree that this approach will always keep you away from your peers or will never open a door of interaction with others. Some Managers tend to do so (intentionally), and it is absolutely fine if they want to be like that as they have numerous reasons for the same. Don’t get disappointed if your manager is not smiling at you, but you need to make sure that your smile is genuine at work, which will also help you in your professional growth. Stretching out the statement about Peers (in bold) above, let’s discuss the Smile at Peer Level. We tend to impress our Boss to be in her good books, which creates a sense of competition among the team. That kind of nature fades away the smile, even if we try to fake it. So it’s always good to have a healthy environment within the Team, and to maintain that, one should have more interaction and discussion with Peers, and we can involve Seniors/Managers too (You know how to ). I know it’s a complicated topic with variation in views, which is quite apparent, but in a nutshell, Smile spreads happiness, especially when it is genuine. It is proven that happiness creates a healthy environment and eventually boosts an individual’s productivity level. Hence, Keep Smiling…now you know when!!
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