This month, we would like to reflect upon the key leadership element of managing emotions. Like anyone else, a leader can experience a gamut of emotions in the workplace, ranging from disappointment, frustration, irritation, to worry, anger, dislike, or unhappiness.
This is all part of the human experience in the corporate world, and inevitably has a major impact on both day-to-day and longer-term decisions.
For better or worse, emotions influence employees' commitment, creativity, decision making, work quality, and likelihood of sticking around—and you can see the effects on the bottom line. Hence, it's important to monitor and manage people's feelings as deliberately as you do their mindset.
A strong leader does not try to avoid emotions or rationalise them with spurious explanations about such things as employee competence, market conditions, or the need for change. They understand that emotions are part and parcel of life and do not try to hide from them.
First step…… Become emotionally self-aware.
“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”
Find out what your hot buttons and catalysts are.
Then, you will be in a better position to control yourself, understand others, and make decisions for all the right reasons.
Next...... Emotional management.
We can all do a better job at managing our emotions. Emotions are on show in every team meeting, sales visit, or negotiation session. To succeed in emotional management, you first need to understand your objective. Then when faced with feelings, you can choose how to behave, keeping in mind your objectives for long-term success.
Take a look at the impact of your emotions. Intense emotions aren't all bad, emotions make our lives vibrant and exciting. You should, however, take stock of how your uncontrolled emotions are impacting your life, your relationships and your professional career.
Aim for regulation. When learning to feel and express your emotions, make sure you don’t ignore or suppress them. Healthy emotional expression involves finding some balance between overwhelming emotions and no emotions at all.
Identify what you're feeling. Take a moment to check in with yourself and ask yourself:
What am I feeling?
What has triggered this feeling?
Am I reacting appropriately, or is there any better way?
What do I want to do about these feelings?
Accept your emotions, all of them. This will help you become more comfortable with even the most extreme emotions and be able to manage them more easily.
Take a deep breath to ground yourself.
Know when to express yourself by being mindful of your surroundings.
Give yourself some space. Avoiding your feelings is not the right way to go, however, stepping away in the heat of the moment may allow you some time to think through an appropriate response.
These are just baby steps to develop greater emotional intelligence. But to become a good, or great leader, accepting that emotions are part of the corporate world is the first baby step in the right direction, and you will be more able to understand others and make the right decisions.