Ep 360 | Leading People - How to Respond to Negative Emotions of Your Teammates

Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick, and welcome to the No Days Off podcast, where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. Today we are getting better at leadership, a favorite topic here at No Days Off. Most everybody that is listening, that's part of the No Days Off Nation, you are either a business owner or you aspire to be a business owner. And we know, if you've hung out here for a little while at No Days Off, you know that the success of the business that you, that you build is without question going to be very much dependent on the people that you bring into your world and how you in fact lead those individuals. Again, whether you're building a business now or you aspire to at some point, your people matter tremendously. So, something that I'd like to talk about, and full transparency, I'm working on this particular topic myself. So, I do not think I am the master of this. Again, I am definitely a work in progress. But what I want to talk about is how to handle teammates or employees when they feel angry, when they're sad, when they're dejected, when they have emotion. See, in business, early in my business career, things were a little bit different. The world was a little different. The, the workforce was a little different. And, uh, I was generally taught that for the most part, you are there to support people professionally, but as a leader delving into personal matters or emotional matters was kind of, well, it was something you shouldn't be doing. That was at least how I was mentored or how I was instructed. Now, as my career has progressed and I'm 20 years now or so, more than 20 years in business, well, the workforce and the world has evolved. And there's an expectation without question, and as there probably should be, that there is a deeper connection between employer and employee. There's a deeper connection between leader and teammate. And a lot of that just has to do with the fact that work and life are not as separate from one another as they once were. So, where I'm going with this is today, I would not take the same approach in that you are really working with an entire person versus just supporting someone professionally, as I've even coached and taught many times in the past. So, how do we approach or how should we work with somebody that, that does display emotion at work, that may have some challenges that are impacting their work? How, as you, how should you as a leader no longer simply avoid that or think those are conversations that shouldn't be had. Instead, how do you go about leading and influencing? Now, first, I think we got to discuss a couple misconceptions. The first one I kind of already addressed, and that's that discussing emotions at work is unprofessional. I think that what you'll find today and what research will actually show you is that supporting someone, uh, that has some sort of emotional challenges is actually not unprofessional. It's it's the professional thing to do. As a matter of fact, research would show that culture conducive to expressing and responding to emotions, those teams that in fact do that outperform the teams that expected their team members to simply check their feelings at the door. So again, the research today will show that those teams that respond to emotion, have that dialogue internally, they outperform those that do the opposite. The next misconception is that getting involved in someone's personal matters is potentially a slippy, slippery slope, or perilous, I would say. Leaders are reluctant to engage with team members' feelings because they think that they may not have the right to intervene in someone's personal matters. Now, that being said, the world again has evolved, and there's— there is an expectation for many that not only should the leader not avoid the emotion or the challenge, they should be asking about it, and they should be consulting. Which leads to misconception number 3: that people who share their emotions want you to solve their problems. I'm certainly guilty of saying that in the past. That's just not accurate. Sometimes people share their emotions just because they want to talk or they want their feelings validated. Um, they don't necessarily expect you to solve their problems. That's a misconception. So if we are going to approach scenarios where there is in fact emotion, there's a Harvard Business Review article I just read that talked about the very first thing you need to do is have a framework for effective responses. And you need to start by asking two interrelated questions. Question number one, does your teammate, does your employee seem to be coping with whatever emotion it is they're experiencing, whatever challenge there is they are experiencing? Are they coping with it? Are they doing a good job coping? Number two, is your teammate or employee focusing on a time-sensitive work goal right now? Okay, so number 1, are they coping? Number 2, are they working on a very time-sensitive work goal right now? These are interrelated questions. So they— Harvard Business Review, this, this particular article would say, ask these 2 questions, and then based on the answers you'd give to these 2 questions, there is a framework or there is an approach that you should take. Okay, so let's start with framework— I'm sorry, approach number 1. Let's say your employee or your partner, your teammate seems to be coping and they're not focusing on a time-sensitive goal. So they seem to be coping with things, but they don't— but they're not— they're not having to deal with some sort of time-sensitive work goal or deadline. Now, if that is in fact true, if they're coping and they don't have a deadline, how How do you approach this as a leader? Validate what that person is feeling, but don't offer advice, at least not yet. So, if they're coping and they're not— their back's not against the wall, and you see that they're in fact exhibiting some sort of emotion, you should ask about it. You should acknowledge the situation. You should talk to them about their emotion. And you should share with them that, that what they're feeling may make a lot of sense based on whatever they share. And it ends there. What you would not do is approach them and say, oh, well, here's how I would, I would handle that. Or maybe you ought to try to see both sides of whatever you're dealing with. Not in this particular case. So validate. Okay, that's scenario 1. Scenario 2. Let's make believe that your teammate is focusing on a time-sensitive work goal, but they're emotionally handling things. So, they are still coping, but now they are on a deadline. How do you approach this? The guidance would be, don't engage right now. Wait until later to ask how that person's feeling. Again, if they're dealing with a deadline, but they are in fact coping, Don't engage and offer, you know, support and guidance until, you know, they've worked through that deadline or that important goal. A mistake that's oftentimes made is that you do, you know, dive in and you want to know what's going on with them. And then you tell them, don't worry, it's not a big deal. Or, you know, you ask them, are you feeling all right? And it throws them off, stresses them out. And causes them, you know, some challenge with respect to hitting that deadline. So again, not working on a deadline or— I'm sorry, working on a deadline but are in fact coping, just avoid for the time being. Leads us to the next scenario, 3 out of 4. Number 3, your teammate, your employee is working on an important time-sensitive task and doesn't seem to be coping. With whatever they're dealing with emotionally. So, they've got something that's really important for the company with a deadline in front of them and emotionally, they're not coping with whatever it is they have to deal with. If that is in fact going on, they have a time-sensitive goal and they're not coping, you gotta intervene and you gotta help that person focus and you gotta check in repeatedly. So, you've gotta dive in as the leader. They have limited time to get something done and they're not coping. That is where you step up and you function as a leader. You need to give help, especially if they've indicated it or asked for it. But you do have to intervene because the company is at stake in this, at this moment. Okay. And then the last scenario, the employee or the team member doesn't seem to be coping but isn't working on a time-sensitive issue. So, they're not really doing well, right? They're not coping, but they also don't have their back against the wall with respect to like a deadline. In this particular scenario, the leader should validate the person's emotions first, have that conversation, and then when the door opens itself to offering advice or offering help, you do so. So, you validate their emotions first and then you offer help. Remember, they're not coping, but the— but it's not time sensitive. So, you can go through a process. Okay. So, how do you get better at this? And we'll start wrapping up. How can you get better at dealing with the emotional challenges of your people? Number 1, you got to identify your default behavior. What's your go-to response? For me, historically, it's been to ignore. I, it's just that's been my default. Whereas others, I know some of my peers, it's actually to do the opposite of that. It's to, it's to dig in and find out what's going on. Both default behaviors are not proper in all scenarios, as I just went through. So, identify your default behavior, recognize you're probably not alone in that default behavior, and work on the areas that you, in fact, need to work on to provide the support I just described. Number 2, I would pay attention to others and pay attention to your own reactions. Be more aware, right? Be more aware. Did you get any feedback after you went through that scenario? And how can you leverage that feedback to be better at, at this particular aspect of leadership? And then lastly, Expand your skillset here. Expand your repertoire. Dealing with people's emotions, dealing with your teammates' emotions in a way that fits each context requires having a bucket, I would say, of responses to choose from. Only once you get a little bit more, a few more reps here and you fine-tune, you know, your approach, will you actually be good at this. But you've got to build a portfolio of responses so that you can choose the approach that makes the most sense and it becomes more natural. So, the end of the day, leaders, in my opinion, have to be able to respond in a supportive manner to the emotions of their people. This is something that I find to be different in today's environment versus, say, 2, 3, 4 decades ago. We've got to learn how to handle others' feelings in all the different contexts and be more aware of our own behavior, improve our approach to this, and just get better as a leader overall. That's how— that's all I have for you today, the No Days Off Podcast. Thank you so much for listening, and remember, every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. So let's get after it. [MUSIC] [MUSIC]