The power of enthusiasm

3 March 2025

Is your LinkedIn feed crammed with updates about the importance of inspiring and engaging your workforce, and cultivating a culture where people thrive? While these are important goals – and can be central to L&D and HR professionals’ success – there’s another equally effective yet often overlooked quality that should be in all leaders’ toolkits: enthusiasm.

Enthusiasm must be authentic

The ability to energise and engage staff is particularly important in L&D and HR, where success is often dictated by how well people embrace growth, change and innovation. But to be effective, enthusiasm must be authentic. It’s about displaying genuine excitement that fuels motivation, builds relationships and drives a culture of continuous learning that’s valued by employees.

Conversely, relentless cheerfulness, blind positivity and pathological optimism won’t get anyone on side; it can be detrimental to ignore challenges or pretend everything’s great. However, when it’s warranted, being genuinely enthusiastic matters – whether it’s about learning opportunities, milestone achievements or recognising the potential you see in your people – and it can have a positive ripple effect throughout the organisation.

Enthusiastic leaders are more inspiring

Think about the most inspiring leaders you know. What makes them stand out from the crowd? Chances are they’re not just knowledgeable, they’re also passionate and truly believe in what they’re doing. Enthusiasm motivates people; it’s contagious.

Generally, if a leader is enthusiastic about opportunities or individual achievements, their workforce is likely to be more productive, engaged and happy too.

Employees benefit from the ripple effect

If you’ve not come across it before, the Pygmalion Effect is a psychological phenomenon where our beliefs about others affect their subsequent behaviour: they rise or fall to meet our expectations.

For example, if you expect someone to do well, the way you communicate with them will reflect this. This means they’re more likely to perform at a higher level to meet your expectations – displaying greater confidence and increased motivation. They’ll then receive positive feedback from others, and so the upward cycle continues.

This works in the opposite way too. If you have low expectations of someone, you may be more dismissive in your feedback, offer fewer opportunities or appear indifferent towards them. In turn, they’re more likely to internalise this lack of belief, leading to discouragement and underperformance – which will then be reinforced by others’ attitudes towards them, and so on.

When leaders display enthusiasm about individual or team potential, it boosts confidence. This is especially relevant in L&D and HR, where the goal is to help people grow and develop. Employees who feel their leaders genuinely believe in them are more likely to welcome opportunities, push themselves and learn new skills.

Creating a positive learning culture

A positive learning culture doesn’t emerge by accident, it’s created. And enthusiasm is a key ingredient in making this happen.

By approaching training and development as a tick-box exercise, you’ll probably find your employees follow suit. By contrast, if you promote L&D opportunities with genuine excitement – showing how they can fuel career progression and business success – your people are far more likely to be engaged.

Next time you roll out a new learning initiative, instead of just saying what needs to be done, why not try communicating why it matters, the impact it’ll have on individual roles and/or the wider organisation, and how it’ll contribute to professional growth and development. This’ll make it feel more like an opportunity rather than an obligation – and the reaction will probably be more enthusiastic too.

Looking for some quick tips to boost enthusiasm?

• Be an advocate for growth. If you’re excited about learning and development opportunities, your team will be too.
• Celebrate progress. Acknowledge achievements – big and small – to reinforce the value of continuous learning.
• Balance optimism with realism. Enthusiasm should always be grounded in reality. Recognise challenges; highlight opportunities.
• Believe in your people. Express confidence in employees’ potential: they’ll be more likely to believe in themselves – and others will believe in them too.

At Staff Skills academy+, we help businesses upskill and retain staff with our award-winning e-learning, in-house and blended training solutions. 700+ CPD and RoSPA-certified courses cover everything from mandatory training programmes to industry-specific knowledge. Plus, we have an extensive suite of soft skills courses to boost employee performance, and a range of fitness and meditation resources to increase wellbeing. Could we be the right fit for your business? Why not have a look and see what we do, or book a call with one of our team today.