I was in a store over the past weekend to do some shopping for an upcoming trip. I wasn't paying much attention to what was going on around me until I overheard something that was pretty upsetting. I heard one employee behind the register say to another "why don't you get it? I've literally explained it to you 5 times. It's not hard." I thought this was rude, but continued with my shopping. When I went up to the register a little while later to pay for my things, the woman who had yelled at her fellow employee was the one who was checking me out. She had a nasty look on her face, didn't greet me, didn't ask how my shopping experience was and was making it clear that she simply did not want to be at work that day. The real shock came when I saw her name tag said "manager".
I understand that everyone has bad days. Everyone has lives outside of work that may or may not effect us on a daily basis. But (in my opinion) no matter what is going on with you personally, when you accept a leadership position in a store, office, hospital or anything else, you need to learn to leave your problems at the door and handle yourself professionally. There simply cannot be responsible for causing "drama" in the workplace, that speaks terribly of you as a leader. Putting others down and treating people with disrespect will not create a productive environment.
I was pretty disappointed to see a grown adult act this way. When things go wrong and you feel like giving up, I've found that faking a smile can get you through the day so you don't burn any bridges.
You're right - maintaining that positive presence is important. Joe Pepe talked about that in his interview - it was one of the things that he said surprised him when he took on the CEO role - that everyone was always watching him and reading his expressions as an indication of the health of the hospital - even if he was just having a bad day.
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