By Jon Gordon

The recession hasn’t just affected bank accounts and bottom lines – it’s also had a big impact on the morale and attitudes of the American workforce. To make sure that negativity and burnout don’t cause your team to mentally check out, build a positive company culture that will unite and engage everyone on your team.

For leaders, now is the time to improve your company’s culture and get inside your employees’ heads. You need to personally make sure that your company is a place where people want to work. You can allow the current economy to crush your morale, confidence and spirit, or you can choose to proactively shape your organization into one that is positive, resilient and prepared to take on challenges.

Here are nine strategies to help you boost morale and engagement in the current economy:

Forbid complaining. All complaining. Yeah, that’ll happen when pigs fly, you’re probably thinking. But I am serious! Successful organizations with great cultures focus on solutions, not on complaints. The rule is simple. Let your employees know that they are not allowed to complain unless they also offer solutions.

Remember, banning complaints is tough love for the good of the whole organization. When you boil things down, complaints are just noise and nothing more – but each one does represent an opportunity to turn something negative into something positive. Turn your employees from problem-sharers to problem-solvers. It’ll make an unbelievable difference in your office’s atmosphere, and it will lead to new ideas, innovations and success.

Focus on people, not numbers. True, there are a lot of numbers to worry about – investments, the bottom line, next quarter’s profits (hopefully!) – and it’s easy to become fixated on those figures.

If your brain is spinning with strategies on how to stay out of the red, take a step back and remember that your company isn’t what shows up in the finance department’s spreadsheets – it’s the finance people themselves, and the HR department, and the salespeople and support staff. Ultimately, an organization’s failure or success is determined by the moods, innovation, energy, thoughts and behaviors of the people who work there.

It’s not numbers that drive people, but the people that drive numbers. Too often, worried leaders approach this relationship backwards. However, this is not a time to ignore your people. Place your attention on them and on the process! After all, numbers are just measurements and indicators of how well your people are executing. Remember, culture drives behavior, behavior drives habits and habits drive results.

Model good behavior. Leaders set the tone for how employees respond to almost every situation. They can inspire, or they can extinguish. For example, if you greet a worker cheerfully even though you’ve both had to come into work an hour early, he’s likely to mirror that attitude. Remember, whatever you expect from your people, you must also expect from your senior leadership.

Leaders need to be humble and hungry. Humble in that they seek to learn, grow and improve every day, and hungry with a passion to work harder than everyone else. Now is not a time to be barricaded in your office. Now is a time to be in the trenches with your people, leading, working and building a successful future.

Tell Energy Vampires, “It’s time to get on the bus … or off the bus.” No matter how many pep talks you give or good behaviors you model, your efforts won’t go far unless everyone is on the same page. That’s right: everyone.

You might be tempted to think that a few non-conformists and cynics won’t prove to be a major problem if the majority of your people begin to share in your positive vision, but you’d be wrong. In fact, in my bestselling book The Energy Bus, I call those who are a constant source of negativity “Energy Vampires” because they suck the energy and life out of everyone around them. Their presence pollutes the waters and can have a highly detrimental effect on the team’s morale, confidence and overall performance.

Once you’ve identified the naysayers on your team, gently approach them and give them a chance to get on the bus and share in a positive vision. However, if these Energy Vampires refuse to get on board, then you must get them off the bus. There are no ifs, ands or buts about it. Even if your biggest complainer happens to be your highest performer, his negative energy outweighs his positive contributions. Once again, it’s crucial to remember that culture fuels performance and results. One cancer cell can multiply to destroy the body.

Practice positive leadership. And no, “positive leadership” doesn’t simply mean the absence of overt negativity. It means remaining purposeful in the face of adversity. While it’s important to acknowledge the obstacles your organization is facing (after all, no one really respects a naïve Pollyanna!), don’t dwell on them in meetings or in individual conversations, and don’t bring up bad news before you’ve pointed out one or two things that are going well. Instead of being disappointed by where you are, optimistically focus on where you are going.

Teach your people to be heroes, not victims. Both heroes and victims get knocked down. The distinction between the two groups lies in the fact that heroes get back up while victims simply give up.

Help your employees to realize that they are not victims of circumstance. Rather, remind them that they have a high locus of control – in other words, they have a significant influence over how things turn out.

Focus on the small wins. The key is to always place your attention on those little, ordinary, non-spectacular “wins” that add up to big successes. My credo is to expect success, look for success and celebrate success. When you focus on small wins, you gain the confidence to go after and create the big wins. It’s the same advice I give to NFL teams as well as to Fortune 500 companies.

Make sure you have sharks in your key positions. When the economy was thriving, it didn’t matter as much if key employees turned in a mediocre performance. Now, that isn’t the case. Look at your team and figure out which people display the characteristics of driven, go-get-’em “nice sharks,” and which are “goldfish,” or more natural relationship managers.

Your sharks are the people you need in sales or business-driving positions. Your goldfish, or relationship managers, are better suited to answering phones, taking orders and cultivating customer goodwill. People who aren’t in the right positions won’t thrive, and your organization will constantly find itself struggling. Too many organizations have relationship managers in sales positions, and that’s why they aren’t thriving. Put your people in the right positions and allow them to do what they do best, and they will help your company to perform its best.

Fill the void. These are uncertain times. Employees are questioning how their industries and jobs will be impacted by the current economy. They’re unsure about what actions to take. Unfortunately this uncertainly creates a void, and my theory is that where there is a void, negativity will fill it.

In the absence of clear and positive communication, people start to assume the worst, and they will act accordingly. As a leader, you must personally meet with your employees and continually communicate, communicate, communicate. You must be seen and heard, and you must also hear and see. If you always fill the void with positive communication, then negativity and fear can’t breed and grow.

These are uncertain times, and no one can predict what the future will look like. Realistically, even if you devote yourself to helping your employees think their best and be their best, some might still find themselves better suited to positions outside your company. That’s ok.

The main thing is emphasize to your team that the world is full of opportunity for those who are willing to stay positive, work hard and find it. Ultimately by filling the voids with positive leadership, positive communication, and positive action, there is one thing you can be certain of – a future in which your organization is stronger, wiser and better than it is today.

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Jon Gordon is a consultant, keynote speaker and the international bestselling author of The Energy Bus, The No Complaining Rule and Training Camp, all from Wiley. He and his books have been featured on CNN and on NBC’s Today show, as well as in Forbes; Fast Company; O, The Oprah Magazine; the Wall Street Journal; and the New York Times. Jon’s principles have been put to the test by NFL football teams and Fortune 500 companies alike. He has worked with such clients as the Atlanta Falcons, the PGA Tour, Northwestern Mutual, JPMorgan Chase, Campbell Soup and Publix Supermarkets. A graduate of Cornell University, he holds a master’s degree in teaching and works with numerous businesses, professional sports teams, schools, universities and nonprofit organizations. For more information, please visit: www.JonGordon.com.

This excerpt, reprinted with permission, is from Jon Gordon’s latest book The Shark and the Goldfish: Positive Ways to Thrive During Waves of Change.

Copyright 2009 Jon Gordon. All Rights Reserved. No portion of this material may be reproduced by any means for any purpose without express written consent of the copyright holder.