Leaders are examples that others will always look at and evaluate. Your team will infer all kinds of things about you from how you act, how the organization is doing and their own performance. When you bring your bad day from home to work you create all sorts of confusion.

A few years ago I was stressed out about some trouble my son was having in school. It was nothing we didn’t work through, but it was a big deal to me at the time. I brought that stress to work. I worried about how he was doing throughout the day. I was preoccupied, less talkative and it was clear to my staff that I wasn't myself. I had folks ask if I was worried about the recent changes in our organization. A number of people interpreted that I was concerned about the performance of our organization. Your staff will create a motivation based on their worries to rationalize your behavior.

I learned that the answer isn’t just to clam up about your personal life, either. Early on in my career I thought the solution to bringing my problems to work was to leave my personal life at home entirely. I kept everything about home at home. I didn’t talk about my spouse or what I did in my free time. The result was that folks thought I was aloof and arrogant. I didn’t humanize myself to relate to others who want to see some aspect of your whole life to understand you as a person.

The bottom line is that you need to balance what you share at work. Relate to folks by sharing pieces of your whole life, while leaving your troubles at home. Be aware of your actions at work and consider how they might be misinterpreted. Are you quieter, more irritable, less patient? If you have an issue outside work that needs to be addressed, take the time to take care of it. If there is a really big issue (say a death in the family or a serious illness) consider sharing the basic info on those family circumstances to help others understand your absence.

Be aware of your at-work self and how you are perceived day to day. Take care to leave your troubles at home and avoid giving your staff something about which to speculate.