How To Deal With Emotions At Work [ Leadership Insight ]

Welcome to this Leadership Insights episode of the Enlightened Executive, where your personal evolution sparks your leadership evolution. In this episode, we're going to share five important things to know about managing your emotions at work. So here's a conversation I recently had Susan do you teach people how to control their emotions at work? Because if you do, can I hire you to teach my boss? So my friend was only half joking when she asked me this, but we're on vacation two hours into a strenuous hike and she's been telling me about her hot headed boss for about the last mile. And we keep hiking up the mountain, ducking under branches and scrambling over boulders. And she's recounting all the times her boss has lost his cool. Like the time he pushed a chair to the floor and his go to sarcasm. And then that specific vein in his neck that starts throbbing when he's about to yell. Unsurprisingly, his lack of emotional control is chipping away at company morale. And of course employee turnover is increasing. People are afraid to tell him no, and bad ideas just keep getting executed because no one wants to get yelled at. I wish I could say this was not the first time I've heard stories like these, but when I tell my friend how I feel about emotions in the workplace, she's surprised. The five things to know about controlling your emotions at work Number one Most importantly, release the desire to control emotions. Our emotions are important tools in the work that we do. They're our body's way of telling us critical information we're working too hard or not sleeping enough. They give us insight into things that we might not want to acknowledge, hunches we should look into, or pain points we've been avoiding. Number two don't get attached to your emotions and don't feed them. When we're angry or frustrated or hurt, it's easy to lean into those emotions, settling into them like an overstuffed recliner. And it's easy to revisit them and feed them, thinking so self righteously about how a client wronged us or how a team member dropped the ball and we can really amp ourselves up. So who among us hasn't replayed the scenario in our minds over and over, each time coming up with a more scathing response and driving our blood pressure up each time we think of it. Or maybe we allow one experience or one set of emotions to trigger a downward spiral. When the client's late with a payment, we start thinking about every negative thing our client has ever done over the course of our Careers winding ourselves up with each unpleasant memory. Just stop. This is not a beast we need to feed. When we can step back from our emotions and resist the urge to amp them up, we can learn from them and use them as the tools that they are. Number three, our emotions can shine a light where we have work to do. I'm very confident in the Leadership360 framework that I use from the leadership circle. If someone challenges me about it, it's unlikely that I'll have an emotional response. I'll probably think, I guess they have a different perspective and let's get curious about what that is. But if my immediate emotional response is anger or, or insecurity or arrogance, well, I've just discovered a soft spot and maybe a soft spot I wasn't previously aware of. As unpleasant as it can be to experience these negative feelings, we can choose to shift the way we interpret them. We can choose to treat these emotions as learning tools pointing us towards our opportunities for growth. If you feel a strong reaction, chances are it's shining the spotlight on additional inner work you need to do. It probably has little to do with the circumstance at hand, but instead is triggering an old wound that you've never healed from your past. And what I've seen is that it's going to keep reappearing in your life until you deal with the trigger once and for all. Number four, we can recognize and own our emotions without displaying our emotions. Let's say one of your team members drops the ball on a big project, resulting in missed deadlines and unhappy clients. Understandably, you might feel quite angry about this. You have two choices. You can storm into your team member's office red faced, with your voice raised. You can yell and name call and hear your heart ringing in your ears as you do. Or you can simply notice the adrenaline and the spike in your blood pressure. You can say to yourself, wow, I'm really angry that this project got screwed up and I'm mad that we have to push back the deadline again and our clients are going to be disappointed. Then, after you've recognized and owned your emotions, you can more calmly share with your colleague your disappointment and engage in a conversation to find creative ways to rectify the situation or make future agreements about how work is handled. It takes practice, but it is possible to recognize and own our emotions without emoting them to everyone in the office. Number five, we can speak about our emotions in gentle, diplomatic terms. When our emotions are triggered, the knee jerk reaction is often to speak in pretty blunt terms. It's easy to say you frustrated everyone on the board with that stunt you just pulled, or you really screwed that up. As tempting as it is to speak that directly, it doesn't do much to increase morale. Shame doesn't do much for innovation or motivation. Instead, take as much time as necessary to collect yourself and try something more diplomatic. Try something like Friday was a pretty frustrating day. I think the team was impacted in the following ways. How can we avoid something like that in the future? Or the team was pretty disappointed about missing that deadline and has some deep concerns about upcoming projects. Let's talk about how we can meet future deadlines. Undoubtedly, these sorts of calm responses may take a bit more time and effort than their hot headed, blunt counterparts. But that time is well spent because keeping your cool while being honest about your emotions will lead to better relationships and better teams. As a leader, you don't have the luxury of chair throwing antics. Keeping your employees engaged and empowered through managing your disappointment is the heart of leadership. So do you need help productively managing your emotions or dealing with highly charged colleagues? Get in touch with us@susandrum.com we'd love to help you. And if you like this episode and want more leadership insights like these, hit the subscribe and like button and we always appreciate our five star reviews. Let's lead the way. Hope you enjoyed today's episode and I'd like to point you to the next important step. Hit the subscribe button and the bell to get notified when we release new content. I'll see you on the next episode of the Enlightened Executive. Sam.