Becoming an Emotionally Intelligent Masculine Leader

Welcome back, team Conor Beaton. Here we're going to dive straight in to how you can develop emotional intelligence and masculine leadership. Oftentimes, for a lot of men, these two things don't necessarily go hand in hand. You see, most men, myself included, were taught that leadership is about control, control of others, control of outcomes, and oftentimes, and sometimes most dangerously, control of emotions. Now, I wrote about this in my book Men's Work, where I talked about how we as men are taught that strength, especially psychological and emotional strength, comes through suppression. So the majority of men that I have worked with are struggling in some way in their career, struggling to lead themselves, struggling to lead in their relationship because they're deploying their this ineffective and maladaptive way to deal with their emotions. And maybe this is something that you've fallen into as well. Many men hear the, you know, the tropes of big boys don't cry and stuff it down and just deal with it. And you're so emotional, you're too sensitive. And we see examples of male leadership that seem to be disconnected and almost disassociated from any type of emotionality. And there's been this portrayal that if you're going to be a man that is a leader, you should be somewhat emotionless and that you need to be able to have your emotions under control. Now, that isn't necessarily incorrect in the sense that we don't want our emotions to napalm out and nuke our life and destroy our relationships. And it's not that we want our emotions to have complete control over our life. It's simply that the way that we are taught to deal with our emotions is through the vehicle of suppression, through stuffing it down, numbing them out, ignoring them completely. And emotions, in the lens that I'm about to give them to you, emotions are just another data set. So just like your thoughts are a data set, your senses are a data set, Your emotions are just another set, set of data or information that you can learn to read. It doesn't mean that it should be the number one source of data or information that you make all your decisions by, but it certainly means that it is a part of the equation when it comes to leading. In love, in sex and business, in your relationships, all of these different areas of life, your emotions are going to play a role. And for a lot of men, where they get into trouble and maybe you've fallen into this path is pretending like you can just ignore your emotions and still produce the outcomes and the results that you want, which almost Never happens. So in today's video, I am going to unpack emotional intelligence for you as a man, what it actually means, why so many of us get it wrong, and how to develop it without losing your edge or your masculinity. Because for a lot of men, what ends up happening or what they're afraid of is, I'm going to open up, I'm going to develop some emotional intelligence, and I'm going to lose my edge, and I'll lose the thing that makes me a high performer or makes me have, you know, really good decisions. So let's start at the beginning with one of the big myths and challenges that I see, which is the myth of the Stoic leader. For generations, men have been taught that emotions in some way equal weakness. And so what we have to do with emotions is sequester them away. We actually have to put them into some type of box. And that for you to lead as a man, you. You need to suppress what you feel. The more that you suppress what you feel, the more effective you are as a man, the more masculine you are. The more that you suppress what you feel, the more capable you're going to become. But that's not strength. That is suppression. And as Jung said, until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate. So what ends up happening is you suppress all these emotions. They don't go anywhere. They don't magically disappear. Even when we disassociate from something that we're feeling, that emotion doesn't just vanish into thin air. It just becomes a kind of material or force that pushes us in different directions. So what we want to try and do is bring these things to the forefront. So emotional intelligence is not about being soft. It's about knowing what's happening inside of you before it hijacks your behavior. Okay. Very important distinction. And a lot of people listen to Stoic philosophy, or they listen to the Stoics like Seneca or Marcus Aurelius. And what ends up happening is that they misinterpret what a lot of those men are saying. Marcus Aurelius might have been one of the most emotionally intelligent men on the planet to ever have existed. I mean, yeah, he, you know, he did some very interesting things in his life in terms of conquering and going to war. But here was a man who had an extreme level of self reflection, an extreme level of understanding. This is what's going on inside of me. So when you can name what's happening inside of you, you can navigate it when you can't, it controls you. So another way of saying this is that when you try and suppress what you are feeling, it. It has a level of control over you versus you having an influence and being able to navigate it based on being aware of it. So here's where most men go wrong. And this is, you know, I've seen so many guys do this. This isn't shame or guilt. It's just, this is what we do because of this notion that strength equals suppression, which I think we can just toss away. There are certainly times where we actively need to kind of sequester away how we feel. I've worked with a lot of men in military and former Navy SEALs, and, you know, there's certain moments in life where how you feel about something actually needs to be shelved so that you can go and take definitive action, so that you can go and get what needs to be done done. I understand that. I'm not negating that, but what I am saying is that that as a. As a primary function for how you deal with your emotions in life is defective. It will not function. You will not be able to operate in life, especially in relationships and with your kids and with your, you know, your girlfriend or your wife or your boss or friends or family. You won't be able to function effectively in those ways. So I'm gonna lay out the four main traps that most men fall into that keep you from. From becoming an emotionally intelligent leader. And then I talk to you about how to develop it. So trap number one is this stoic mask that we're talking about believing that composure means emotionlessness, that composure means that you should be vacant of any type of feeling or emotion. And usually the stoic mask, not the truly stoic men, but the stoic mask, the. These men are often controlled. They're controlling themselves, exerting high levels of control in themselves, usually high level controls on other people. But they're often very disconnected, and they lead usually from intellect only. Completely disconnected from an understanding or awareness of their emotions. Their teams, their partners, their families really feel this kind of coldness. So if you've ever gotten that feedback of like, man, you're just so cold, like, I can't feel you. That might be the trap that you're falling into. The second one is the emotional flutter. And this is on the other side of the spectrum. This is the men that open up, but they open up and the floodgates just come out, right? Emotion just comes pouring out. They vent instead of express. I think Dr. Glover calls it Emotional puking, which is a pretty wild description, but they mistake a kind of catharsis for connection. And so these men are on the opposite end of the spectrum. All their emotions just come out. There's no kind of retro or sort of introspection around what's happening inside of them. It's just they feel something they vomited out. They feel something they vomited out. So their emotions are constantly spilling over instead of being understood, contained, and really integrated into a sense of being. The third one is the outsourcer. This is really the nice guy. These men expect others, usually the women that they're dating, to really do their emotional labor. And it's not often like a conscious choice like, I want you to do my labor for me, my emotional processing. But they will say things like, tell me what's wrong with me or I need you to help me calm down, or you know, I just, I wish I didn't feel this way. And what they'll end up doing is kind of sharing all of their emotions with the women that they're with or with the men in their life from a place of wanting that person to deal with their emotions. Right. So emotional intelligence is self generated. It's not outsourced. There are times, of course, to have some type of co regulation where you know, you're. You genuinely just need some support from other people and that's understandable. But the outsourcer is the man that is constantly sharing his emotions with this background expectation. And again, it's unconscious that that other person is going to figure out what their emotions mean, read the data, read the information of their emotions, and then tell them why they're feeling that way or what they should do because of that emotion. So there's kind of a different type of blindness to the outsourcer that they often feel because they're not reading the internal data or information, right? They're handing it to somebody else and saying, read this book or this manual and then tell me what I should do with the information that you found versus let me figure out what's going on inside of me. The last piece is the avoidance achiever. I have definitely fallen into this category before, but this is the man that hides in work, in money, in status, in the avoidance of feeling. And so he sort of prioritizes or believes that leadership is purely about achievement, not about presence, not about relationality. But true leadership is embodied, it's not perform. So each of these patterns, they have a type of disconnect and a way of circumventing emotions of Circumventing internal emotional intelligence, understanding. So let's just pause for a moment and talk about what emotional intelligence actually is. Because emotional intelligence, or eq, as some of you have probably heard the term, is about being, is not about being overly emotional. It's about being aware of and accountable for what you feel. Aware of and accountable for what you feel, and being able to translate that awareness into some type of wise action or self understanding. So psychologist Daniel Goleman, who is really prominent in the field, breaks down EQ into four different parts. He talks about self awareness being the number one pillar. So knowing what you are feeling and why. Self awareness, knowing what you're feeling and why. Self regulation. Managing these emotions before they manage you. Right. Again, I'm not saying control these emotions, lock them down, suppress them, numb them out. I'm saying manage them. Being able to regulate, right? When your anger gets too big or, uh, you know, the anxiety gets too big or the, you know, the sadness gets so overwhelming, whatever. Being able to regulate these emotions in a way where they don't consume you. The third piece is being able to have a certain level of empathy. So understanding what others feel without losing your own center. Okay? For a lot of men, a lot of guys fall into one of two camps. They are either the disconnected feelers. They lack empathy. It's like, I don't really understand why that guy's going through that. And like, why can't he just get over it? Like, his girlfriend broke up with him. So what, you know, go get drunk, go get high. You go bang somebody else and feel better. There's a type of disconnection from what somebody else might be going through. And then there's the very poorest man where everything affects him. Everything. You know, it's like hooting the blowfish. Here's a. Here's a throwback for you, actually. It's like hooting the blowfish. I'm such a baby because the dolphins make me cry. Right? It's like every little, every little thing that somebody else shares emotionally affects that man. And he's got no real barriers or boundaries between his emotions and other people's emotions. And that does not make you an effective leader in your relationship or in your life. Because if you are overly empathetic, if you have empathy for everything that somebody's going through, you know, your wife comes to you, your girlfriend comes to you, and she's having a hard day, and all of a sudden, you know, she's upset. And then you get super upset and affected by. You can't actually support her because you are being so consumed by what she's feeling and what she's going through. And now you're just in the same emotionally experience that she is. But on the other hand, we don't want to emotionally disconnect from what somebody is going through. So having actual empathy, understanding what somebody's going through without losing your own center. And the fourth piece is relationship management. So this is another piece to emotional intelligence or EQ emotional management. Navigating conflict. Being able to go through a hard time in relationship, building trust with somebody, leading the connection instead of trying to use manipulation or coercion to try and get what you want. So leading through connection. So masculine leadership thrives when these four elements are alive in a man. Now I would actually say that when you take these four core elements and you couple them with assertiveness and direction, you have a very potent man. When a man is able to have a deep level of self awareness. When you as a man are able to have an understanding of I'm feeling this way, this is why I'm feeling this way way. And you're able to regulate what it is that you are feeling and have empathy for the people that are in your life and lead and manage relationships. Right? Have some type of relationship management. And you can do that with assertiveness and direction. You are potent. You will not only be extremely attractive, but you're going to feel very, very competent. So let's talk about. I'm going to give you two pieces here about how you can start to develop this EQ and actually deepen your emotional intelligence and start to have that type of masculine leadership. Here's the key difference that I really want you to hold on to, and you might want to write this one down. The key difference is that healthy masculine leadership contains emotion. It doesn't collapse into it or cut itself off from it. Okay, so healthy masculine leadership contains emotion. So masculine leadership in a relationship is about containment. When you hear a lot of women talking about what they love about their partner, about their man that, you know, maybe they're, they're in love with and like, he's such a good man, what you'll hear them talk about is this type of emotional containment that he offers a kind of containment for her emotions, that he's not completely disconnected from what she's feeling, but he's also not reeling from what she's feeling. He's also not like so disrupted by what she's going through. And this makes you as a man very trustworthy to be Able to have an open heart and be connected to what other people and yourself are going through without having to completely cut yourself off or collapse into it. So it's really like the riverbank that gives the water direction, right? Without the riverbank, emotions just flood. They flood everywhere. And without the water, there's really no life. There's no. There's no sustenance. And that, that's the balance that you as a man can begin to foster containment without suppression and suffocation and expression without chaos and the type of emotional vomiting that Dr. Glover talks about. So as Seneca wrote, he who conquers himself is the mightiest warrior. He who conquers himself is the mightiest warrior. Now, the misinterpretation that I see so many people have with this quote is, oh, conquering the self must mean that I have to dominate myself. I have to kill off my emotions. I have to disconnect from them entirely. No, that's not the conquering that Seneca was advocating for. If you read deeper into Seneca's work, what you will find in is a kind of promotion of very, very deep and rich self awareness. And that, that level of self awareness, that level of self discovery is really what he is aiming us towards. So here's the framework. Okay? This is what I'm going to call the three A model of emotional intelligence, okay. That you can begin to use as a man. And, and I'll put this into a very clear framework so that you can use it. But the three a model, a number one, A awareness. Name it to tame it, okay? You have to have some level of awareness. And when you feel off, you need to be able to pause and ask yourself a few questions, right? And if you read any of Viktor Frankl's work, Man's search for meaning between stimulus and response, there is a pause. Now, if you as a man do not have pause, this is something that you can begin to cultivate. That pause allows you to choose to respond versus an unconscious reaction. So an emotionally, a man that's lacking in emotional intelligence, a man that struggles with emotional regulation, he's just gonna. He's a bundle of reacting, right? He's reacting with defensiveness, he's reacting with attack. He's reacting with guilt, he's reacting with embarrassment. He's just reacting constantly. So we need to have the awareness and you need to be able to name it to tame it. So what am I actually feeling? Where do I actually feel it in my body? What's the story my mind is telling me about this feeling? For example, I feel Angry. I feel protective because I can sense some disrespect, or I feel protective because I'm not getting what I want. And that distraction changes your reaction entirely. So we need to develop awareness first about, what am I feeling? Where am I feeling it? Why am I feeling it? The second thing is to alchemize that emotion. So regulate before you respond. Regulate before you respond. I cannot stress this enough. You need to create space. It's not enough to just pause and say, okay, what am I feeling? What am I experiencing? But you actually need to deploy some type of regulation before you respond, before you relate to the other person. So never lead, speak, or decide anything. When you are dysregulated, it is the most disempowered position for you to operate and lead from, regardless of the environment. Whether you are with friends, family, co workers, colleagues at work, it doesn't matter. Okay? When you are dysregulated, that is the last place that you want to lead or make decisions from, the best thing you can do. And I've really deployed this over the last few years. It makes such a difference. Sometimes it drives my wife crazy because she's like, why can't you just answer a question in the moment? Why can't you just make a decision in the moment? Sometimes I need a little bit more space. So I'll say, you know what? Let me sit with that for tonight. You know, I'll get back to you first thing tomorrow morning. Or let me. Let me just sit with this for an hour and get back to you. Now, I don't always do that. Sometimes it's just a very clear yes or no. But there are situations where I need to sit with something and actually just be with. Is that something that we should do? Do? Like, what decision do I want to make? Should we go on that trip or should we not? Do we want to take our kids and put them in that situation? Or not? And far too often, the men that I work with are trying to make decisions right in the moment when they're dysregulated, when they're in a conflict with their wife or their girlfriend, when they're in a stressed situation at work. And I get that sometimes you're on the spot and you have to make a decision. And a lot of the times, you can actually create space to regulate before you respond. And here's why this is so important. Okay? Masculine regulation is a physical experience that other people, that other people can share in. So when you as a man are regulated, people feel it. It is it's often not a verbal thing. It is something that is very, very somatic and physical. Once your nervous system settles, clarity follows. Okay, when you're in a stressed response as a man, as a. As a human being in general, but as a man, when you're in a stress state, your brain and your body are prioritizing survival. That's generally not a place for you to be making important decisions from. So once your nervous system settles, clarity follows. So always prioritize regulating before you respond. All right? And lastly, number three is action. Lead through presence. Action, taking action. Now that you can respond and you're not reacting, speak directly, be truthful, be calm, speak with a direct tone. Try and be as clear as you can. Action without awareness is reckless, as we've talked about. And awareness without action is just avoidance. And this is what a lot of men are doing, is that they have all the awareness, but they're not taking action. So the next step, once you've developed some of this awareness and you have some regulation and is to take the risk, to take the action. And that's usually what it requires, is the risk. So here's the call. We are in a time where a lot of men are being asked to have a kind of higher level of leadership. And that leadership really is about emotional intelligence. And this isn't just about you having a better relationship. This is in many, many, many ways. We need more cohesiveness, more coherence from men. We need men who are grounded that can pierce through a lot of the BS and a lot of the charge in our culture, right? The world doesn't need more emotionally numb men, and the world doesn't need more emotionally reactive men. It needs men who can hold and contain complexity and intensity and the intense charge that is happening socially and relationally within the world. Men who can feel deeply, think clearly, and act decisively. And if you can be one of those men that cultivates this. And I fundamentally believe that two of the most important traits. I'm going to end off with this. Two of the most important traits that I will be fostering and developing in my son in the men of the future is adaptability and the ability to regulate and calm your nervous system. Adaptability for whatever is to come in a post AGI, post ASI society, or quantum computers or whatever the hell is going to happen. Adaptability and the ability to regulate under extreme duress and pressure. Because right now, so many people are just constantly dysregulated and it is almost impossible for you to lead for you to make healthy decisions for you to lead yourself or your relationship or your life or your career from a place of dysregulation. So this emotional intelligence that I'm talking about is at the very core of masculine leadership. And I'll leave you with this quote by David Data. He said, the masculine grows by challenge, but the feminine grows by praise. Masculine grows by challenge. So right now, for a lot of you men, this is the challenge. Don't avoid what you feel. Stop trying to use suppression as a means of leadership. Face it, master it. Let it forge you into someone trustworthy and potent. So if you enjoyed this episode, as always, don't forget, hit the bell. Notification. Subscribe to the channel. Subscribe so that you can get notified when other videos drop. And man it forward. Share with somebody that you know will enjoy it. Until next week, Connor Beaton signing off.